"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).

We're at war. If you find yourself cheering for the other side, you've lost your way.

The word traitor gets thrown around too much.

But, uh, this is a United States senator openly cheering on Iran against American military forces. pic.twitter.com/TYVYGO44oR

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 21, 2026

And look at him, grotesquely smiling, as he makes the excuse that we don't understand "sarcasm" anymore — you know, the form of humor that consists of saying the opposite of what you think:

JUST IN: Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy doesn't say he has any regrets after furious backlash to his X post calling reports of Iranian ships slipping past the U.S. naval blockade "awesome."

"I guess I just have to be more careful about sarcasm on Twitter," Murphy exclusively told… pic.twitter.com/MB6nuZjY9V

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 21, 2026

"Twitter has become kind of a cesspool, I probably should give up on sarcasm on Twitter," Murphy says, as if the debased speech of others — who?! — undermines our capacity to understand sarcasm. Why? If anything, this "cesspool" quality ought to make us more likely to think somebody's just talking shit.

But Murphy wants to elevate his cynically spit out "awesome" into something subtle. He's doing sarcasm and the shitheads of the cesspool can't figure it out. They can't see that when a Senator says something, it really counts as the opposite of what he said through the magic of the time-honored device known as sarcasm.

Does Chris Murphy need to apologize? Of course, not. He's essentially already said he's sorry — sorry "Twitter" made the people so shitty they don't understand sarcasm anymore.

"I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to 'kiss my ass.'"

Writes Donald Trump, on Truth Social this morning:

I have always been a big fan of Tim Cook, and likewise, Steve Jobs, but if Steve was not taken from the Planet Earth so young, and ran the company instead of Tim, the company would have done well, but nowhere near as well as it has under Tim. For me it began with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my First Term. He had a fairly large problem that only I, as President, could fix. Most people would have paid millions of dollars to a consultant, who I probably would not have known, but who would say that he knew me well. The fees would be paid but the job would not have gotten done. When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to “kiss my ass.”

Childrearing tips from Eleanor Roosevelt.

My son Chris sent me that clip, which I think is from "FDR: A New Political Life" (commission earned). Chris has a project of reading (at least) one biography of each of the U.S. Presidents. He's not reading them in chronological order though, and he's a lot closer to the end than it looks. Anyway, I'll correct this post if I'm naming the wrong bio. So hold off on snapping up that book until later in the day. And think twice about jury-rigging a chickenwire cage to hang your baby out an upper story window. Or are you the sort of busybody who calls the authorities on a very modern mother who just might be Eleanor Roosevelt?

UPDATE: The book is actually "FDR" by Jean Edward Smith. Chris says it has "a lot of anecdotes." 880 pages. That other one is a mere 284 pages. 

"Morante, born José Antonio Morante Camacho, is widely regarded as the leading 'torero de arte' of his generation, and deemed by some to be the greatest ever."

"Famed for his mastery of the cape and a style that blends risk, improvisation and aesthetic refinement, critics regularly attribute 'mysticism' to his best performances.... A recent El País commentary called one of his performances a 'virtuosic, stirring, surprising, baroque work — an act of improvisation by an artist who is not of this world, capable of hypnotising, with a supernatural ability entirely alien to modern bullfighting.' Another suggested it would not be surprising 'if a religion were founded in his honour.'..."

That's from The London Times., where it looks like this:

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

ADDED: Me, by Meade:

"Finding a new name was surprisingly easy. A Weatherman would drive out to a rural graveyard and look around..."

"... until he found the headstone of a person who would have been about his age but had died as an infant. Then he’d head over to the county courthouse and ask for a replacement birth certificate. Soon, he would have an official government license with his photo, but a new name and a whole new identity. My dad grew his beard out. My mom cut her hair short, dyed it red, and started dressing like a California hippie—big glasses and flowing dresses—rather than in her signature black leather, miniskirts, and knee-high boots. They set up safe houses—cheap apartments in working-class neighborhoods. They took jobs as construction workers, longshoremen, and nannies—work that didn’t require a Social Security card and always paid at the end of the day, in cash. Meanwhile, their bombing campaign intensified.... The method they used was simple: a young white woman dressed up as a secretary would walk into a building, place a bag or a purse in an empty rest room or office, set a timer, and walk out...."

Writes Zayd Ayers Dohrn, in "My Childhood in the Weather Underground/My parents founded the radical revolutionary group, then became fugitives. I was born in hiding, and spent my early years on the run" (The New Yorker).

"This foray into looking at humans as creatures that are governed by instinct and biology offered little in the way of advancing Darwinist theory..."

"... nor was his explicit approach of studying man as a mere ape a novel one. What ensured the popularity of The Naked Ape was first its clarity of prose, and second, the era in which it was published, where a popularised 'back to nature' philosophy and sexual liberation were all the rage.... [T]he salacious manner of the book helped to guarantee it success. During copulation, he wrote, 'the female breasts … shows a significant increase in size. By the time orgasm has been reached, the breast of the average female will have increased by anything up to 25 per cent of its normal dimensions. It becomes firmer, more rounded and more protuberant.' Elsewhere, Morris would tell readers that the human penis is the largest of all primates, and the only one without a bone, making it harder to achieve an erection.... The Naked Woman (2004) was a similar blend of zoological observation and detailed titillation, with an analysis of women’s backs ('even at rest … naturally more arched than a man’s back'), legs ('part of the sexual fascination … is that they focus attention on the point where they meet'), buttocks (they 'transmit a powerful gender signal') and breasts (which 'operate first as visual stimuli and then as tactile ones'). Never short of ideas, Morris also advanced the theory that female breasts had developed as imitation buttocks 'to shift the interest of the male to the front.'..."

From "Desmond Morris obituary: natural world expert/Zoologist, broadcaster and author best known for The Naked Ape dies aged 98" (London Times).

I'd always thought woodpeckers were in it for the insects, but now I see at least this one guy is in it for the music.

He's into the metallic resonance. Listen all the way to the end:

This was out at our sunrise vantage point this morning. The boxes are part of the equipment attached to a pole out there. It's a bit unsightly, but I believe it's for science — weather, maybe, or is it surveillance?

Wherever music has emerged, hasn't the first musical instrument always been the drum? (That is, the first instrument beyond the musician's own mouth.) Or is it the flute?

"He wants to use his presidency not only to slash the country’s budget but to wage an ideological war and rewire the country’s mentality."

"He wants to dismantle what he calls the 'aberrant' concepts of social justice and economic equality and make the nation’s core principles capitalism, the free market, a limited state and individualism. 'We are at war,' Mr. Milei said at a right-wing festival last year, and added: 'We are fighting a cultural struggle, an ideological battle, a war for the survival of our freedom.' At political rallies and international summits, in public policies and a deluge of social media posts, Mr. Milei has relentlessly sought to infuse Argentina with his libertarian ideals. And turn it into a model for the world. A nation where people are loath to eat alone or drink a cup of mate, the national infusion, without sharing with the person next to them is embracing a leader whose fundamental message is that people should fend for themselves. 'He is trying to break our DNA,' Juan Grabois, an opposition lawmaker, said of Mr. Milei. 'To destroy the communal identity of our people.'... Laziness to Mr. Milei is a vice stemming from years of left-leaning governments that turned society to indolence by giving citizens generous benefits...."

From "Javier Milei Wants to Rewire the Argentine Mind/Argentina’s right-wing president has tamed the country’s runaway inflation. Now he wants to transform its values" (NYT)(gift link, because there's a lot going on over there).

And here he is in his superhero costume:

"There’s always two poles in any movement. There’s this pull toward being post-human, shinier, newer, cloned, etc., the sense that people have elevated the lacquered surface of the machine over the body."

"[And there's this pull toward] I’m real. I think we’re like old stone houses. We have the value of antiquity. If you haven’t tweaked yourself, it’s like you have a working fireplace that’s been going since 1680. We’re authentic.... For all women, there’s that line between choosing to be malleable and pleasing and to conform with the collective norms or refusing it.... No, I’m not playing that game."

Said the 77-year-old French Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck, quoted in "Why Fashion Suddenly Loves Older Women/Representation of women of a certain age has never been higher. What’s going on?" (NYT).

The article is by Vanessa Friedman, who continues: "Authenticity is, of course, one of the current buzzwords not just in fashion, but in culture generally. It’s a reflection of the fear that individual style has been lost to the algorithm.... It’s not just influencers and celebrities who have become the vehicles for this version of ageless sameness. It’s political figures, too.... As many MAGA women have embraced the plumped and smoothed 'Mar-a-Lago face,' it has become an expression of a larger social swing toward exaggerated norms and old-fashioned patriarchal gender roles rather than simply a cosmetic fad."

Morning fire.

"Tucker Carlson... has called the nicotine pouch brand ZYN a 'lifesaving' product that can increase productivity and 'male vitality.'"

"Mr. Carlson went so far as to say that the pouches are 'like the hand of God reaching down and massaging your central nervous system.'...  'What the Make America Healthy Again movement is saying is, "I am going to question what I’m told," said [biohacking influencer Dave Asprey,] who has encouraged his followers to do their own research on and experiment with nicotine, which he calls one of 'Mother Nature’s cognitive enhancers.'... Another common refrain among MAHA supporters is that the medical establishment has made Americans sicker by suppressing information about natural cures and instead pushing prescription medications. That was the focus of an episode last year of the popular 'Culture Apothecary' podcast, titled 'Nicotine is NOT the Villain: What Big Pharma Hides from Parents.' Alex Clark, the podcast’s host and a leading figure in the MAHA movement, interviewed a chiropractor and alternative medicine practitioner who suggested that the drug industry had buried information on nicotine’s benefits and claimed that nicotine could treat Covid, cancer and more...."

From "Influencers Are Spinning Nicotine as a ‘Natural’ Health Hack/The influencers, many of them aligned with the Make America Healthy Again Movement, say the medical establishment has unfairly demonized the compound" (NYT).

like the hand of God reaching down and massaging your central nervous system — reminds me of that Trump-is-like-Jesus illustration:

"The New York Times... says a boom of older mothers is coming to reverse low fertility, but the math is against them."

Explains Maibritt Henkel, at The Argument, with some devastating graphs.

"Chinese carmaker Seres has been granted a patent for what it calls an 'in-vehicle toilet' that slides under a passenger's seat for visits to the loo while on the road...."

"Chinese electric vehicles have become increasingly packed with unconventional features, like built-in massage seats, karaoke systems and a fridge, to stand out in a highly competitive market.... The loo will come with a fan and exhaust pipe to channel odours out of the car.... Waste is collected in a tank that has to be emptied manually. The toilet also features a rotating heating element that evaporates urine and dries other waste. When not in use, the toilet is concealed beneath the seat, making full use of the space inside a car without requiring more room."

BBC News reports.

Via Metafilter, where somebody links to this video:

"The cloud-being in the pictograph... includes the symbols of a snake, which is associated with lightning, and a hummingbird, which is believed to be..."

"... a messenger with prayers to bring rain. The outstretched arms of the cloud being have rain as well as its full body consisting of rain. The lightning snake under its arm is stimulating the rain to fall. It looks like a storm cloud with lightning that has a heavy downpour in one region and lighter rain falling in others. There are examples of cloud beings with lighting that have a very similar appearance to modern photographs of storm clouds that have captured lightning bolts. Clouds can seem to be standing on lightning feet, which look like plant roots going down into the ground...."

From "Prehistoric Art of the Colorado Plateau: It’s All About Clouds!" (Cloud Appreciation Society).