"Reinforce the academic core of the university; don’t allow classes to be dominated by open laptops or other devices; do more to ensure that people do not self-censor; respect the ideals of free speech and academic freedom; 'be human.'"

Those are among the "smart and sensible recommendations" to be found in Yale's "Report of the Committee on Trust in Higher Education" according to "Yale Has Come Up With a Surefire Way to Make a Terrible Situation Worse" (NYT). That's written by the president of Wesleyan University, Michael S. Roth.

Sorry, I'm having a Marx Brothers flashback: "The Dean is furious! He's waxing wroth!"/"Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for a while."

So what is Roth waxing wroth about with this anodyne committee report? 

The committee claims that in 2016, “departing from its traditional emphasis on the creation and dissemination of knowledge, Yale expanded its mission statement to include ‘improving the world today,’ educating ‘aspiring leaders worldwide,’ and fostering ‘an ethical, interdependent and diverse community.’”

It's weird to make a show of retreating from something so mild and vague. But Roth paraphrases the rejected mission as a matter of "independent thought, a commitment to truth even when it’s inconvenient and a focus on the creation of truly democratic citizens." Is that what the Trump administration has been "punishing" and what Yale is trying to be self-defensive about? 

"[I]n 1972, Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, discovered ['Reefer Madness'] in the Library of Congress archives."

"He screened it at a New York benefit, catching the eye of Robert Shaye, founder of the new production company New Line Cinema. Shaye knew it had potential as an accidental satire so he rereleased it, holding midnight showings marketed to college students across California campuses in particular. The rest is campy cult classic history, one that includes a 1998 stage musical, which has been revived in productions big and small around the country since, and a 2005 TV movie musical starring Kristen Bell, Alan Cumming and Neve Campbell. 'Reefer Madness' may be the first film to be embraced by a generation because it’s so bad — or so bad, it’s good."

That's from a new NYT article, "'Reefer Madness,' the P.S.A. That Backfired Spectacularly/The comically self-serious and outrageous 1936 morality tale, which warned the public about marijuana, became an unintentional parody and midnight-movie classic decades later."

First, I was sorry to see the article omitted the name of the author of the story:

 

Image taken from Wikipedia.

That's amused me for a long time.

But, second, I don't believe "Reefer Madness" was the first thing that "a generation" embraced because "it’s so bad — or so bad, it’s good." Personally, I remember going to see "The Green Slime" in 1969 for this reason. I remember hearing that it was what "all the heads" in New York were seeing. 

"You can get married at the New York Marble Cemetery on Second Avenue/The Balloon Saloon in Tribeca has the best gag gifts and the biggest fake poops in town."

"Avoid trampoline parks at all costs. Throw a less chaotic kids’ party instead at Twinkle PlaySpace in Williamsburg. For $399, hire NY Teacup Piggies to bring in three piglets for the young partygoers to play with.... Call Beverly Fish at Chezzam for out-of-the-box entertainment — think actors in rat costumes serving a cheese platter.... You can hire a babysitter to walk your child (ages 4 to 15) from school to your home (or wherever they need to go) using the service Trot My Tot. You’ll pay a maximum of $25 per hour.... Cheeky tweens tend to enjoy the 'butt scavenger hunt' at the Brooklyn Museum; ask for it at admissions.... "

From "259 Things New Yorkers Should Know/The second edition of our annual handbook will help you make the most of the city" (NY Magazine).

I looked up the "butt scavenger hunt" so you don't have to:

"Coyote vs. Acme — a film Warner Bros. famously tried to scrap in 2023 — has released its first footage ahead of coming to theaters this summer."

Hollywood Reporter observes.

Warner Bros. had planned to scrap the completed movie as part of a $115 million write-down. Social media uproar helped to save the project, which Ketchup Entertainment acquired for distribution. The shelving attempt was one of the first headline-making decisions under CEO David Zaslav (along with another high-profile and completed project, Batgirl).... Zaslav previously told The New York Times about the decision, “The question is, should we take certain of these movies and open them in the theater and spend another $30 or $40 million to promote them? And [the] Warner Bros. team and HBO made a number of decisions. They were hard. But when I look at the health of our company today, we needed to make those decisions. And it took real courage."

I've seen the trailer, and I think they made the right decision to scrap this thing after making the wrong decision to manufacture it in the first place — to insert the Warner Brother cartoons into the real world, especially a real world full of lawyers... it's awful... but then that's the opinion of someone who has an aversion to movies based on pre-existing intellectual property and to movies about lawyering. So check for yourself:

ADDED: Let's remember that Chuck Jones had rules for the use of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and this movie egregiously breaks rule #6: "All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters—the southwest American desert." 

"The three members of TMZ’s new Washington, D.C., bureau arrived at Capitol Hill last Monday...."

"The celebrity-gossip outlet’s Washington operation had started off with a bang. The partial government shutdown had enraged TMZ founder Harvey Levin, who thought he might shame Congress back into session by publicizing how lawmakers were spending their recess while federal workers went without pay. The photos did not disappoint. There was a khaki-clad Lindsey Graham at Disney World, holding a bubble wand and boarding Space Mountain. There was Ted Cruz scrolling in his Economy Plus seat. There were members of Congress touring Edinburgh Castle while on a trip to Scotland. 'The reaction in D.C. was, "Oh, that’s just a codel,"' said Washington communications veteran Nu Wexler, referring to a congressional delegation. It wasn’t clear TMZ understood the distinction or if it cared...." 

From "Washington Enters Its TMZ Era" (Intelligencer).

"Veterans are greeting the arrival of TMZ’s aggressively tabloid approach with a mix of curiosity and wariness. 'If they can expose scumbags who rape and abuse women, that would be a great public service,' said Axios CEO Jim VandeHei. 'If they just make a mockery of a widely mocked institution, that would be a shame. Let’s see the road they choose.'"

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I could have tried to adopt, though I think a single gay man would still be right at the back of the queue..."

"... but I remember seeing my nephew for the first time, back in 1997 — just recalling it makes me emotional — and feeling this tug, a real visceral knowing that I was related to this little human being, that we share a gene pool. I wanted the same with my own child. When I reached 50 I thought, ‘It’s now or never,’ and I really started looking into surrogacy seriously.... A couple of friends took a beat or two to respond when I told them about my plans. Another asked, 'Do you really want to be coping with a stroppy teenager when you’re in your seventies?' I think my parents, who are both in their eighties, and sister were concerned that, aged 50-plus, I didn’t realise the enormity of what I was letting myself in for.”

Said Simon Burrell, quoted in "What it’s like to be a single dad (with a child via surrogacy)/The frequency of single fathers having children through surrogacy has tripled. Simon Burrell tells Helen Carroll why he spent £200,000 on becoming one. Plus: I was the UK’s first solo surrogacy father" (London Times).

"But Trump’s urge is toward gigantism, not grace. This is as true about his ballroom... as it is about the proposed arch."

"It is, simply, un-American. It is even, in its derivative way, un-French, since the Parisian instances are, at least, right-sized for their place and their purpose. If it were ever to be built, future generations would dream of its demolition. Its injury to the democratic spirit is too large to contemplate, and would be too hard to look past, even from a distance."

Writes Adam Gopnik, in "Donald Trump’s Triumphal Arch and the Architecture of Autocracy/When asked by a reporter whom the arch would be for, Trump said, 'Me'" (The New Yorker).

Is gigantism un-American?

Sundust.

"It's discouraging to come up here and see all the heads down..."/"Sir, you're on a 2-minute timer here so let's go."

Resident speaks at the Seattle City Council

The Democrat city council wouldn’t even look up at him. He asked them to at least look at him and they rudely tell him his time is almost up

He tells them they’re like Animal Farm

“It reminds me of George Orwell's famous saying from… pic.twitter.com/Unkx9ZEYcs

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 22, 2026

I love the elegance with which the citizen adapted to the city council's effort to throw him off, to reduce him to nothing. He made the experience into the substance of what he was able to say within the harsh time constraint. He spoke slowly and with dignity and even worked in a George Orwell quote. 

"As some of you might recall, earlier this year I had an AI oopsie of my own..."

Writes David Lat, in "An AI Screw-Up By... Sullivan & Cromwell? There are multiple ironies involved in this unfortunate incident."

I’ll simply repeat my two signature quips, urging you to extend grace when it comes to AI fails:

   • “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes… for an AI screw-up.”

   • “The next time you hear about an epic AI fail, instead of (or at least after) laughing your ass off, perhaps have the humility to say this to yourself: ‘There but for the grace of God go (A)I.’”

Or, if you prefer, here are some bon mots from Claude, which it generated after I fed it my two sayings and asked for more along the same lines:

"'If the Democratic Party is to flourish in the future,' Mr. Platner told me, 'it needs to be an antiwar party.'"

"As talks to end the latest disastrous war focus on reopening a narrow strait of water that was open before the war began, this seems like an obvious conclusion. And yet many Democratic politicians would most likely be wary of embracing it.... [M]any Democrats seem to fear being seen as antiwar. What if they vote against wartime funding, and then an Iranian attack targets U.S. troops or the homeland? Or what if Mr. Trump bombs Iran, and the regime collapses and is replaced by something better? You could feel this calculation within the Democratic Party as the war began — a hedging that only dissipated when the war’s brutality and insanity became clear.... We like to frame our wars as virtuous, but they are not. Instead, they resemble a declining empire sowing chaos along its periphery as a matter of strategy.... [T]he forever war has been destroying America from within, like an organism that must keep growing to survive, filling us with fear of outsiders and contempt for one another. War does that to societies: Once you normalize taking human life abroad, you tend not to value it at home...."

Writes Ben Rhodes, in "Graham Platner Went to Hell and Back. He Has a Simple Message for Democrats" (NYT).

Rhodes was a speechwriter for Obama. Platner is the likely Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senator for Maine. 

Shaping the SPLC story.

I'm taking a position of cruel neutrality and see myself spending much of the day observing how the 2 sides are shaping the story.

Let's just start with the way things look at Elon's place:

Is it terrible or is that a huge loophole?

Terrible https://t.co/geK2swDv82

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2026

The litigation is already pending: "Lawsuits pending at Virginia Supreme Court over redistricting referendum" (ABC 13 News). There are 3 lawsuits, 2 of which challenge the language. The vote was allowed to go through, but we'll see what the court says. I can see how one might argue that the voters didn’t approve of anything that doesn’t "restore fairness" and the plan put forward by the Democrats was designed for the purpose of advancing the party— not to restore fairness — so the voters did not approve it.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I wish I could designate myself as a 'foreign-policy Republican,' but there’s no such option, so I have to go whole hog."

"By registering as a Republican rather than an independent, maybe I can have some influence on moving some Republican policies toward the center. I have given up on trying to change the Democratic Party. My main goal is to send a message that many traditional Democratic voters can’t accept what it is becoming—a replica of left-wing European parties that are hurting their countries."

Writes Alan Dershowitz, in "Why I’m Becoming a Republican/I first registered as a Democrat in 1959. The party’s hostility to Israel is too much" (Wall Street Journal).