The Baselitz Tree.

I am inviting you to invert images today in honor of the recently deceased Georg Baselitz, who said, as I quoted below, "The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement, one we have all got used to, but one that we absolutely do not have to believe in."

"If you find out that an artist whose work you consume is a terrible person, and you still choose to consume it, are you a terrible person?"

Asks Will Leitch, in "The terrible Michael Jackson movie exposes a central cultural question. The film is indefensible. The impulse to see it is deeply human" (WaPo).

I don't know who wrote the headline, but I don't see Leitch attributing deep humanity to the millions of people who are seeing and loving "Michael" — which he and all the critics know "is a bad movie."

Those people who love "Michael" are, in Leitch's words, those who "generally don’t see mass culture as a moral issue, or a political one, or really as having much practical, tangible effect on their lives at all. They go to the movies, listen to music, watch television or read books, not to make some sort of statement about the world but to take a break from it. For most people, art and entertainment are just something that gets you out of the house for a while — and might even make you dance."

In short, they are the very opposite of deep. 

I would have liked to hear a sophisticated analysis of why it is deeply human to want to see Michael again, in his glory, without the ugliness of the accusations. It is deeply human to long for a return to feelings of joy and love that enveloped you when you were young. You're not a nitwit to want that.

"In contrast to the refined intellectualism and impersonal aesthetic of artists like Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd, he offered an art that reveled in raw emotion, extroverted brushwork..."

"... and a fierce engagement with the complexities of 20th-century German history.... Mr. Baselitz’s 'Hero' series of 1965 and 1966 — blocky figures in thick impasto stumbling through tormented landscapes — plunged the viewer into a nightmare vision of postwar Germany. No less disturbing were the woodsmen, hunters and cows of the 'Fracture' series, disassembled into horizontal strips and merged with the landscape. In a break with convention, Mr. Baselitz began turning the central images in his canvases upside down in the late 1960s.... 'The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement, one we have all got used to, but one that we absolutely do not have to believe in,' Mr. Baselitz told the critic and historian Walter Grasskamp in 1984."

From "Georg Baselitz, German Neo-Expressionist Painter, Dies at 88/Along with contemporaries like Anselm Kiefer, he mounted a frontal attack on Minimalism and Conceptualism, the dominant 'cool' styles of the 1970s" (NYT).

Here's an example from the "Hero" series 

I wish Baselitz could have done the official portrait for... various political figures. But I will not say who because I'm chilled by the arrest of James Comey.

And here's an example from the "Fractures" series, totally inappropriate for an official portrait:

"We are not going to get into issues of catastrophe and extinction...."

"But we’re not going to get into that. We just are not going to have this whole thing explode for the world to view it."

Said Judge Gonzalez Rogers, quoted in "Is A.I. a Threat to Humanity? Not in This Trial. One of Elon Musk’s abiding fears is that A.I. could one day threaten humans. But the jurors deciding his suit against OpenAI probably won’t hear about it" (NYT).

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

And here's Meade's view of the duck:

"The Iran war must end with a decisive victory. And that victory can only be achieved in one of two ways..."

"Either Iran capitulates or the U.S. launches a final flurry of military strikes. Trump has given the regime every opportunity to sue for peace, and it has rejected his overtures. It is admirable that Trump is taking his time. He understands that what he is doing is important and cannot be rushed. But it is also true that he cannot declare victory until either Iran cries uncle — or he finishes the job."

Writes Marc A. Thiessen in "Trump is 14 days from decisive victory in Iran/The regime won’t deal and the blockade alone won't break it. Only military action will" (WaPo).

ADDED: Elsewhere in WaPo, there's "What will happen when the clock strikes 60 days on Trump’s war/Clinton's precedent will allow Trump to keep fighting Iran without congressional approval."

"Great king," says Trump, pointing at Charles. "The greatest king in my book."

After the King and Queen drive off, Trump says, "Great people. We need more people like that in our country. Really great people."

"Limiting food and water has been used to hasten death in people dying at home since long before it had a formal name."

"But to accelerate decline this way for people with advanced dementia, whether their deaths are imminent or not, is uncomfortable territory for many.... While some patients are late enough in their dementia as to be nonresponsive, others may still be enjoying and requesting food and may not remember writing a directive to withhold it. 'Which person do you listen to: the person who had capacity once and made this decision that they wouldn’t want to live this life, or the person with dementia, who may seem very, very happy with the life that they have?' asked Dr. Eric Widera, a professor of geriatric medicine at University of California, San Francisco...."

From "She Didn’t Want to Live With Advanced Dementia. So Why Was She Being Kept Alive? Some consider the regular feeding of late-stage dementia patients to be nonnegotiable. Others see it as extending life unnecessarily" (NYT).

The article cites a paper that presents the idea of minimal comfort feeding: "The nursing staff could provide small quantities of food and liquid if the patient signaled she wanted it, enough to keep her comfortable while still allowing her to die."

Billions of dollars and still no end date.

1. "The Iran war now has a price tag ($25 billion), but still no end date" (NPR).

2. "California high-speed rail price tag jumps to $231B, nearly seven times 2008 estimate" (Fox26News).

"King Charles tames Maga but Britain’s still in the doghouse."

That's the headline at the London Times. Subheadline: "While the monarch has gone down a storm with President Trump’s VIPs, his US visit seems to have done nothing to help Sir Keir Starmer."

I guess "gone down a storm" is a British expression. I'm going to assume it means something like: was a big sensation. Yeah, that's right. I checked with A.I. The American expression that's equally mystifying to an outsider would be: brought the house down.

Speaking of house...  in the doghouse seems to work in both countries.

Now, let me find the meat of this article:

"Mills attempted to blunt Platner’s momentum this spring by running ads bringing up controversy around deleted Reddit comments he made years ago downplaying the seriousness of sexual assault."

"Mills argued that Republicans would make 'mincemeat' out of Graham in a general election, given his Reddit comments, and that a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, which he got covered up, will likely provide fodder for attacks."

From "Maine Gov. Janet Mills drops out of race to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins/The seat is critical to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Senate. Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and Democrat, is likely to win the primary" (WaPo).

In the comments over there, somebody says "You can tell she's a Dem because she did the right thing" and somebody else says "How is quitting because you don’t have the money the 'right thing.' She did the 'only thing' she could have done."

"Plants depend on carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis — but that doesn’t mean they grow better when there’s more carbon in the air, scientists say."

"A sweeping survey of changes among 32 compounds in 43 crops found that nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels. 'As a scientist, it’s really interesting,' said Sterre F. ter Haar, an environmental scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the survey, published in November. 'As a person … you don’t want to see such a shift, because it’s so negative.' For the past several years, ter Haar and her colleagues have worked to compile a database of all existing research on nutrient changes linked to rising CO2.... Next the team used their dataset to calculate the nutritional densities of each crop under different carbon dioxide levels — and to predict how their composition could continue to shift in the future. On average, they found, nutrients have already decreased by an average 3.2 percent across all plants since the late 1980s, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 350 parts per million...."

From "Carbon pollution is making food less nutritious" (WaPo). That's a gift link, so you can figure out the science and whether this is a case of lying with statistics.

It occurs to me that percentages of nutrients would change if plants just contain more water, but a plant composed of more water might be more appetizing, so just eat a bit more of it. I'm always suspicious of articles that stir up climate-change anxiety.

"Amazon Discusses ‘Apprentice’ Reboot—With Don Jr. as a Potential Host."

The Wall Street Journal reports.

Interesting, but there is no reason at all to think that Don Jr. has what it takes to assume the role his father played. Schwarzenegger couldn't do it, and Schwarzenegger brought his famous charisma and media-and-politics know-how to the project. The only reason for anyone other than Donald Trump to do "The Apprentice" is to prove the unique skill and talent of our very special President, Donald Trump.

"The ballroom is, to the confusion of many, a top priority for Trump. Indeed, it has been one since long before he launched himself into politics."

"Way back in 2010, Trump called David Axelrod, at the time a senior adviser to President Obama, and offered to build a ballroom for the White House. The offer was not accepted. Barely two weeks into his second term, Trump began talking up his ballroom dream once again. Within months, he had demolished the East Wing of the White House and construction was set to begin...."

I'm reading "What Does the Correspondents Dinner Have to Do With Trump’s Ballroom Project? The case may test just how far national security deference by the courts to the executive can stretch" (Lawfare).

"With those beautiful ears of yours — he's got great hearing."

Periodista : pregunta de la nasa

Trump: el mas indicado para responderte es el director de la NASA con esas orejas que tiene, escucha re bien, tiene oido de gato😳

*le hacen zoom a las orejas* pic.twitter.com/SGUOv46qmo

— ElBuni (@therealbuni) April 30, 2026

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.