A quiet sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

RFK Jr. excoriates Dana Bash: "You're talking nonsense. You're making assertions. You can't support it. And then when I call you on them, they're you're telling me I'm arguing...."

"Do you see your job as ending vaccine hesitancy or do you see your job as telling the truth to the American people?... All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say trust the experts. That's what you do.... Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the expert, was lying about everything about masks, about social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID. He was lying. And you were punishing people for not trusting the experts. And now you're rolling out the experts again to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of...."

"Seattle went though this years back. A whole block, lots of people. The city just gave it a little time and then one morning at about 4am..."

"... came in and announced the street will be cleaned in 10 minutes and everyone had to get out. They just rolled trucks down and tossed everything away and that was that. I think Madison will just need to do the same here. Let people do their thing for a bit, then wipe it clean and everyone moves on."

Says a commenter at the Reddit post, "A stroll through the autonomous zone. Who is responsible for bringing out all these porta-potties?"

"Mirror," the tag.

That last post really needed the tag "mirror." How did I come so far without a tag for mirror? I made one, then had 22+ years of the blog to search to add the tag retrospectively. It was easy to search for the word "mirror," but hard to separate the posts that deserved the tag — the ones referring to the object, a mirror — from the ones that did not — the ones using "mirror" as a dying metaphor (ideas "mirror" other ideas and so forth). And then there's the drudgery of adding the tag and republishing. But in the end, there's the fun of clicking on the tag and peering into the kaleidoscope.

There was "Fun with Mirrors" in 2008:

There was, also in 2008, the convex mirror I loved and wanted to buy:

"It's expensive — over $1800 — but as I thought about possibly buying it, I realized what I wanted it for was to take pictures, and therefore what I really should buy is a fisheye lens for my Nikon D50." So I got that fisheye lens. If you're nostalgic for those days, click the tag "fisheye." 

There was this advice about dolphins, in 2014: "People, can you just leave the dolphins alone? They don't want to swim with you, despite the 'expression' you see on their faces. The love you think you are experiencing is nothing more than self-love. Stay home, save your money, and stare in a mirror until you get a deep, accurate assessment of how true your self-love is. Is there a fixed smile on your face? I hope not, but if there is, it's not because you share the spirit of the dolphin. The dolphin is 'smiling' because nature played a dirty trick on him, drawing idiot humans into his domain. Get out. Leave the dolphin alone."

There was the mystery of what a monkey sees in a mirror, back in 2005: "What's in the monkey's mind when he looks in a mirror? Higher minds -- human beings, great apes, dolphins -- figure out, when they are looking in a mirror, that they are seeing themselves. Other animals, it's long been thought, think they're seeing a stranger. But a new study shows that the monkey occupies a middle position, where it doesn't see itself, but it doesn't see a stranger either. The monkey sees a 'Puzzling Other.'"

In 2024, I had Grok outline a book for me. It was titled "Through the Glass/Exploring Mirrors as Portals to Other worlds."

I was surprised to see that, back in 2013, I'd contributed to my long-running men-in-shorts theme with this stark advice: "Take a good look at yourself in the mirror when you've got your shorts on. Ask yourself if I were a woman, would I fuck me?"

There was this good question, in 2013: "If someone holds up a mirror and you say 'I look like an idiot,' is the mirror-holder calling you an idiot?"

There was the sunset in my rear-view mirror as I drove 500 miles to see Meade in 2009:

"Many Christians believe pride is not only a sin, but the original one, and the worst of them. It is demonic, 'the complete anti-God state of mind'..."

"... as C.S. Lewis wrote in 'Mere Christianity.' Pride is a turning away from God, and an exultation of oneself.* The mirror is a symbol of pride and vanity, but it also symbolizes our incomplete, earthly knowledge. As the Apostle Paul wrote about God in his first letter to the Corinthians: 'For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.'... In Islamic mysticism... a smudged mirror is a metaphor for the human soul. It is only when the ego is annihilated, and the surface is polished clean, that the divine becomes visible.... In 1967, Michel Foucault darkly described the mirror as a kind of threshold, a mix between a fantasy world, a utopia and some weird other place on the margins — which he called a 'heterotopia.' The mirror is one such strange place because we discover our presence and our absence at the same time. 'I see myself there where I am not,' he wrote, 'in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface.'"

A small sample from "All This Staring at Our Faces Is Messing With Our Heads" (NYT gift link), by Catherine Shannon.

___________________

* Shouldn't that be "an exaltation of oneself"? Are we not talking about raising ourselves above God (as opposed to jubilating over how wonderful we are)? Think about it. We say "an exaltation of larks," not "an exultation of larks." 

At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

***

That photo is from yesterday. Today's sunrise was rained out. We had such an intense sunrise yesterday, with lots of deep red and orange, and this 6:24 picture with the colors cooled off didn't fit the set. It gets a solo today.

The last remaining column factory in New York City.

A documentary about the American Wood Column Corp, which has preserved traditional wood manufacturing inside what is a beautiful building. 

"I think that these things are going to create a radical spectacle and exuberance for socialist policies that’s going to kind of light a fire for socialism around the country — unfortunately."

David Friedberg explains why Mamdani’s government grocery stores will actually succeed in the short term, and why that’s the entire point.

They don’t need them to work long-term.
They just need the spectacle in time for 2028.

“I think that these things are going to create a… pic.twitter.com/vp0U5iX4vL

— jay plemons (@jayplemons) July 31, 2026

"The camera advances toward a finely dressed couple kissing in Central Park.... The man and woman start to look nervous...."

"The video was released Thursday. Within hours, internet sleuths figured out that the two are colleagues at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a white-shoe law firm in Manhattan. The man, Nathaniel D. Cullerton, is 45 and a partner. The woman, Kelsey Borenzweig, is 29, and an associate. Cullerton is married. Everyone from the Daily Mail to Above the Law covered the scandal, and the video has since amassed more than 5 million views. 'Cheating in public, wife is a lawyer, got caught on camera? Triple homicide 😭,' read one comment, which has 224,000 likes, on TikTok under a repost of the video. 'People are way too comfortable cheating, make cheating illegal,' read another that got 43,000 likes...."

I'm reading "Welcome to Secular Sharia/Drunks, cheaters, and Karens beware: TikTok is the new home for public floggings" (The Free Press).

That article is summarized in video, here:

Jackie's head in a hatbox.

My son Chris, who's nearing the end of his project of reading biographies of all of the American Presidents, sends me very well-chosen snippets of things now and then.

He's reading "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" by Richard Reeves (commission earned), and he sends this:

"MTV created a space where we felt like we all went to the same school, and I like to call that school MTV high. We might have been different classes and been in different cliques..."

"... the hair bands, the punkers — but we all were aware of each other and have an understanding of each other. Every time see a teenager walking down the street in an MTV t-shirt, I feel so proud because I know they're picking up on the passion and the energy that got MTV off the ground."

Said Martha Quinn, commemorating the beginning of MTV, 45 years ago today.

Everyone always likes to say the first video was "Video Killed the Radio Star," but what was the next video and the next? I found out:

"This town deserves a star like [Ariana Grande]."

A new video, with lots of feminist revenge.

"Every time we find out something new about GLP-1, it's a positive.... They're now saying that it reduces the likelihood of stage one cancer going to metastatic cancer..."

"... by 50%. Every time we keep waiting for another shoe to drop, we find out, 'Oh, it's actually a good thing.' Everyone at this table is going to be on a GLP-1 within 24 months....  I think when you look at the studies around the upside versus the downside here, it's the most transformative technology in the world."

Says Scott Galloway, ticking off Bill Maher:

Bill Maher shuts down Scott Galloway on the spot after he says “everyone should be” on a GLP-1 “within 24 months.”

GALLOWAY: “Every time we find out something new about GLP-1, it's a positive. They're now saying that it reduces the likelihood of stage one cancer going to… pic.twitter.com/2KUMXrkciF

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) August 1, 2026

AND: Speaking of Scott Galloway...

Scott Galloway is upset about being 'doxed' after he supported Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax:

"He's taken a legitimate source of tax revenue, and he's turning it into a wanted poster."

"What is the upside here? Why is he doing this?"

Incredible. pic.twitter.com/9Yrb9lw4An

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 1, 2026

"I'm glad that I didn't get arrested, and I'm glad that we get to feed Annie this banana."

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I'm watching that because I was reading this NYT article, "'Errands' Should Be the Most Boring Show on the Internet/Fighting a traffic ticket. Hanging a curtain. Installing an air-conditioner. With his cult-hit online series, Noah Blau has made the mundane fascinating" (gift link).

As a student at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Blau grew engrossed in the work of cinéma vérité auteurs like Frederick Wiseman and Ross McElwee while also immersing himself in the New York canon of John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese.

“Scorsese’s ‘After Hours’ is like the ultimate errand,” he said. “That would be my dream episode — for someone to get so sidetracked on their errand that they get chased through SoHo by an angry mob, like in the film.”

That pushes all the right buttons for me. Also made me think of one of my favorite TV shows, "How to with John Wilson."

But I do have to home in on "Cops are usually kind of nice to me." How casually people enjoy their privileges. I need to check on how the heavy rains affected the people in the Corey Ruiz Autonomous Zone. 

ADDED: My son John has "17 thoughts on After Hours."

"Making daylight saving time permanent, Orthodox leaders say, would disturb their community rituals and create logistical problems..."

"... for Jews who work or attend school in the winter, when sunrise and sunset — which coincide with morning and evening prayers — would occur an hour later. For those who work secular jobs, praying nearly an hour later than usual would make it difficult to arrive at work on time, they argue."

The NYT reports, in "Why Some Orthodox Jews Oppose Permanent Daylight Saving Time" (gift link).

"Is this piece seriously arguing that we should continue to consume (another!) known carcinogen so that people can have low-paying jobs?"

Says the top-rated comment on the NYT article "What Else Do We Lose When People Give Up Booze? Yes, there are many benefits of cutting back. But bars are closing. Jobs are going away. And a way of being together can feel harder to find" (gift link).

Related news: "More Americans now use weed every day than drink or smoke cigarettes" (NY Post).