"The right-wing De la Espriella, who was inaugurated last week, pledged during his campaign to bring the 'wrath of God' against drug traffickers and other armed groups to 'end them like cockroaches, like rats.'"

From "Colombia’s new president asks Trump to bring militarized antidrug campaign to the country/The South American nation is the world’s largest producer of cocaine" (WaPo).

"If you can merge gaming with aviation, why not?"

🚨 2,000+ Gamers Hired for AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL@SecDuffy: “They multitask. They have to think on their feet. They work with their hands and their eyes, and they’re making great controllers… We had 14,000 applicants, 8,000 qualified. We were getting the best and the brightest.” pic.twitter.com/C0U6eRj0IC

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) August 14, 2026

Sunrise.

"She was trying to find the humor in her own story, that of an American parent, but one who had been wrongly held in a prison in Italy for years..."

"... for the 2007 murder of her roommate when both women were studying abroad there. But the sold-out audience, 150-strong, at first only occasionally tittered at her gags about life in prison, tabloid infamy and the idiosyncrasies of child-rearing.Then, she told a joke about her daughter’s favorite game. It’s called 'Momma goes to Italy,' Knox said. In the game, her daughter grabs the bars of a jungle gym at their local playground and screams, 'Let me out! Let me out!' Knox mimed a wild-eyed convict desperately grabbing the bars of a prison cell. The audience’s snickers turned into the night’s first belly laugh."

From "Amanda Knox Takes the Stage, Reclaiming Her Story Through Comedy/In a solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe, Knox is trying to turn her tabloid infamy into stand-up humor, despite an intense backlash" (NYT gift link).

"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today released a report Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of “Gender Medicine'..."

"... a commissioned report examining insurance coding practices, perverse financial incentives, and the provision of sex-rejecting procedures for minors. Drawing on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Guidance, Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations, peer-reviewed scientific literature, hospital records, whistleblower testimony, nationwide insurance claims analyses, and interviews with patients and parents, the report presents HHS’ findings and recommendations about the industry pushing and profiting off so-called “gender medicine.” A shortform documentary illustrating the report’s findings and highlighting the stories of victims of predatory gender medical practices was also released in conjunction with the report...."

From the HHS press release.

Vance is taking the lead in the announcement:

For years now, some hospitals and healthcare providers have been subjecting children to horrific, experimental treatments in service of radical gender ideologies. Today, thanks to the Wolves in White Coats report released by @HHSGov, we know why: profit. It turns out that… pic.twitter.com/B7K7iumpYC

— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 13, 2026

Here's the video (the "shortform documentary"):

"That’s what it is to be a Jew, in some ways. Being really comfortable with tension, and being comfortable with paradoxes..."

"... and understanding that we’re a people, we’re a nation, we’re an ethnicity, we are a religion, too. We don’t fit naturally. And that’s why we’re such a pain. It’ll give a lot of grist for people to argue at over kitchen tables, as we have been doing for over 3,000 years."

Said California State Senator Henry Stern, a Democrat, quoted in "Are Jews an Ethnic Group? California Considers the Question. A bill would allow Jews to identify themselves as an ethnic group on state forms. Supporters argue it’s a step toward acknowledging the complex nature of Jewish identity" (NYT gift link).

Stern is the son of the actor Daniel Stern:

I have to use the tag "Judaism" for this post. I don't mean to be coming down on the side of those who say Jews are a religious group. I'm against tag proliferation and  "Judaism" and "anti-Semitism" are longstanding tags. And I don't have separate tags for each ethnic group. I just use "ethnicity." There's also "race consciousness" and "racial politics."

"A Wisconsin city spent millions on a grocery store. It didn’t go well/Madison spent millions to build a supermarket across the street from another one."

An opinion piece in The Washington Post.

After eight years of development and more than $8 million spent by the city of Madison, Wisconsin, Maurer’s Urban Market will open in the Bay Creek neighborhood later this month. Local officials have pitched the store as a measure to prevent a “food desert” in that part of town. The truth: Maurer’s is right across the street from another grocery store. And within a mile of three others. How this glut came to be is a good illustration of why the government is not cut out for the grocery business....

"My office will use every tool available to protect innocent lives."

Said the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton (who is running hard for a U.S. Senate seat), quoted in "A Fight Over Abortion and Surrogacy Ends With a Baby Born in Texas/The baby, who was born Wednesday with a severe heart defect, drew the attention of anti-abortion activists and the Texas attorney general after the intended parents wanted the surrogate mother to have an abortion" (NYT gift link).

[The surrogate, McKenna] West, who did not respond to an interview request for this story, said in an interview this month with the former Fox News and current YouTube host Megyn Kelly that she did not support abortion and felt “trapped” by the surrogacy contract, which permitted the intended parents to end the pregnancy via abortion.... 

[Lincoln] Wilson, the lawyer for Ms. West, said that the legal case was not over and that Ms. West would continue to fight for custody of the boy, who must undergo weeks of surgeries “before he’s really in the clear.”

Here's that Megyn Kelly presentation: 

"The Ivy League graduate had briefly planned to pursue an ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ defence after pleading not guilty to murder of healthcare boss."

I'm reading "Luigi Mangione expected to discuss 'plea deal on Friday'" in the London Times.

You can tell the publication is British and not just by the spelling of "defence." It's the forefronting of "Ivy League graduate" rather than his being considered especially cute, which is what counts in America.

"ICE is planning to buy up to $20 million worth of electric gloves designed to allow agents to deliver painful shocks to detainees."

I'm reading "ICE’s new weapon: painful electric shock gloves/The glove is manufactured by a firm called Compliant Technologies" (London Times).

The Glove — Generated Low-Output Voltage Emitter — "is not effective through clothing or hair and can be degraded on individuals and animals that are extremely hairy."

So what body parts do you grab with your electrified hands? I was able to find what I think is Compliant's manual. My search for "face" only turned up a couple instance of "surface": "Periodic cleaning of the outside surface area of the G.L.O.V.E. SHALL only be done with 'My-Shield' wipes or surface cleaner in order to maintain the warranty on the G.L.O.V.E."

Also from the manual (at page 15):

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I, like many a young woman, was once wildly judgmental about plastic surgery. I grew up in the 1990s..."

"... at the bizarre, lonely intersection of second-wave feminism and Manhattan privilege. Many of the girls in my private high school had their breasts enlarged and their noses shrunk. I congratulated myself for not following suit, even though I didn’t have a bump on my nose and I wasn’t flat chested. My mother, the writer Erica Jong, had a whole gestalt back then: pro-sex feminism, which of course meant keeping herself appealing enough for men to want to have sex with her. She worried about her own weight and beauty constantly. Julia Phillips, a successful film producer and writer, once compared her to 'Miss Piggy when her face is in repose'.... My mom was the concubine of more than a few powerful men. To preserve that status, she had a face-lift in her 50s. Many of the feminists who populated my mother’s narrow townhouse — Andrea Dworkin, Betty Friedan and Phyllis Chesler among them — did not believe in molding themselves into something different for men’s delectation. These women rejected the beauty-obsessed power structure that my mother embraced. Instead, they hoped to change that culture by refusing to comply with it...."

Writes Molly Jong-Fast, who got a deep plane face- and neck-lift, in "I’m Not Going to Lie About My Neck" (NYT gift link).

Moving the frozen eggs to the front burner.

I don't know how much more of this we'll be seeing, but I wanted to record what seems like an incipient trend, the women's issue we somehow suddenly need — egg freezing.

1. A couple days ago, in an episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Why Adults Are Getting Cancer at a Younger Age," there was the story of a 36-year-old woman with breast cancer, facing surgery and chemotherapy, who was asked by her doctors if she wanted to freeze her eggs: "And so first things first, like my brain wasn't even on the cancer. My brain was like all the things that go into freezing your eggs and what that meant for like my future and what that meant. Like my boyfriend and I at that time, like we weren't talking about having kids...." And the journalist assures us that "egg freezing is a really intense process, it's intense emotionally and it also intense physically."

2. In yesterday's NYT, there was "Ocasio-Cortez Opened Up About Freezing Her Eggs. She Got Women Talking. Many women say being open about the fertility treatment is a form of empowerment. But critics say all the talk can be misleading" (gift link). "Until about 2012, freezing eggs to preserve fertility was considered an experimental intervention for urgent cases like cancer patients whose fertility would be compromised by treatment. Like breast cancer, menopause and menstruation, egg freezing has become yet another women’s health issue in which open discussion is seen as a form of empowerment. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez herself said that it was 'badass that I’m going to be giving myself shots in the green room' of a TV studio..."

NBC’s Steve Kornacki at a loss for words.

NBC’s Steve Kornacki reacts to the USB drives that were missing election data in Wisconsin.

“Are you serious? They have to do… God… Okay…” pic.twitter.com/Byj6KQJBX9

— Brandon Doggett (@brandondoggett) August 12, 2026

"I'm not going to travel the world with a cooler full of sauerkraut. It's ridiculous. I can't do it!"

🤣 LMAO! Marco Rubio just dropped this hilarious response to Sec. RFK Jr.'s diet

Q: Have you adopted RFK's diet of red meat and fermented vegetables?

RUBIO: "No! This is a CRAZY diet. This is a diet that consists of eating sauerkraut and meat. Now you understand like this is… pic.twitter.com/qgaMNjsIhu

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 11, 2026

"There was so much vulnerability and yearning there. It was heartfelt and pure girl power. Arlene on that song was inspiring. I wanted to record a record like that."

Said Ronnie Spector, about "hearing 'Maybe' for the first time on her grandmother’s Philco radio as a teenager."

Quoted in  "Arlene Smith, Whose Song ‘Maybe’ Helped Define Doo-Wop, Dies at 84/With the Chantels, a groundbreaking female vocal group, she tugged heartstrings with the indelible hit and paved the way for a wave of 'girl groups'" (NYT gift link).

At that point, doo-wop — born of city street corners — was dominated by male acts like the Penguins (“Earth Angel”), Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (“Why Do Fools Fall in Love”) and the Del-Vikings (“Come Go With Me”).

Despite the fact that a few pioneering Black female groups like the Teen Queens (“Eddie My Love”) and the Bobbettes (“Mr. Lee”) had hits before the Chantels, the record industry “didn’t know what to do with us,” Ms. Smith later said in an interview with the site ClassicBands.com.

"Maybe" is the subject of Episode 65 of the great podcast "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs." Excerpt: