"I’m a professional liberal... and even I don’t think I could tell you what liberalism’s vision is, or who its leaders are, at this moment."

"In some way, liberalism never really recovered from the Obama era — when it had this grand victory in electing America’s first Black president; when it had this thoughtful, deliberate and, frankly, quite popular liberal leader. Then it ended in Donald Trump’s being elected — not once but twice. But here’s the thing: Donald Trump is not working out. He is not making people want more of what he is...."

Writes Ezra Klein, in "The Book That Changed How I Think About Liberalism" (NYT).

Klein is reading books looking for the answer. The book referred to in the title is "The Lost History of Liberalism," and here's the interview he does with the author, Helena Rosenblatt. There's a lot of talk about the historical meaning of the word "liberal," which hasn't got much to do with the predicament of the Democratic Party in recent years. What was "this grand victory" for liberalism in electing Obama? Klein only refers to Obama's race and demeanor! 

"[T]he administration is raising the question of whether allowing transgender women to enroll at a women’s college — and providing access to 'women-only' spaces such as bathrooms, dormitories and locker rooms — violates civil rights protections for women...."

"Smith [College], one of the nation’s largest women’s schools with about 2,500 students, has been admitting transgender students since 2015, along with several other top women’s colleges. The issue became a lightning rod at women’s colleges after a transgender applicant was denied acceptance to Smith in 2013 because her gender identity did not match her financial aid forms. Since then, most women’s colleges updated their admissions policies to welcome transgender applicants. One notable exception has been Sweet Briar College in central Virginia, which does not admit transgender students and helps students in transition transfer to another college...."

From "The Trump administration is investigating Smith College over admitting transgender students" (NYT).

These schools became incapable of freely choosing their own policy after "The issue became a lightning rod" in 2013. If this Trump investigation ends up forcing Smith to exclude transgender women, it will only be forced to do what it originally wanted to do. Obviously, there's a big difference between being forced by social and political pressure and being forced by the government. It's not as though the inclusion of transgender women was required by the government... not that it didn't try. It did. In the Biden years.

The new chore is the pre-chore chore of making chores seem fun.

I'm reading the WaPo article titled "The secret to making chores so fun that you look forward to them/Strategies such as a points system, timed challenges and even 'the poop rule' can lend some excitement to mundane tasks such as decluttering or mopping the floor" (gift link).

 

And the secret to making headlines so fun you have to clip is to include bait like "the poop rule." But I will go in there to save you from the temptation and give you more time for brainwashing yourself into the enjoyment of chores that, if done, will actually benefit you. 

"The poop rule" is: "When decluttering, ask yourself, 'If this item was covered in poop, would I still keep it?'"

That's a little harsh. I prefer the rule: If your friend were decluttering and wanted to deaccession this item, would you add it to your collection of stuff?

Anyway... I made that a gift link so the pay wall wouldn't factor into your experience of temptation to click. Otherwise it's sour grapes: I couldn't get past the paywall anyway. No, you can get it, but can you resist? There might be a useful tip or 2. 

"They said garage bands are coming back with kids, which is kind of means nature is healing."

From a Joe Rogan conversation that starts here:

From the transcript, which blends the voices of the 4 interlocutors: "It's so sad that rock is dead.... We were talking about that. Yeah, it's all queefy now. When was the last time.... Where's the new rock bands? The new Zeppelin... It used to be the biggest part of music. Rolling Stones, AC/DC.... It used to be the biggest part of music was rock and roll. What the fuck? That's kind of crazy.... What happened to rock? What happened to rock? Who are the biggest? They said garage bands are coming back with kids, which kind of means nature is healing. Yeah, that's a good sign.Yeah, kids are tired of playing video games. Want something real. But the thing about that that doesn't make sense about rock music is everybody still loves it, right? Everybody still plays covers. Oasis is doing giant arenas all over the place. I took acid at that Oasis concert...."

And that last line changes the topic. Too bad! I wanted to hear more about the return of garage bands and why that's a sign of health, but then I understand the argument. I just wanted to spend more time on it and on Joe Rogan, it seems they take every opportunity to get back onto drugs. 

"Trump to deport hundreds of bison from Montana."

That's a headline at the London Times.

Subheadline: "The American Prairie Foundation has had its license to graze conservation herds of bison on federal pastures revoked by the Department of the Interior."

From the text: "The Department of the Interior, which has a bison as its logo, has revoked the licence of a rewilding charity trying to restore the natural splendour of the 'American Serengeti,' the eco-diverse range of grasslands home to wolves, pronghorns, grizzly bears and mountain lions.... Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior, who owns a ranch in neighbouring North Dakota, has favoured the arguments of cattle farmers eager to graze their cow herds on cheap federal lands instead...."

"What a welcome and much-needed reminder of a President who valued art, beauty, and decency. A glaring contrast to the garish, self-serving chaos of the current one."

Says one commenter at the NYT article "The Audacity of Art at the Obama Presidential Center/Barack and Michelle Obama commissioned 30 artists to create work for their campus, which starts visitor previews next week on the South Side of Chicago."

That's a gift link so you can see the photos of the artwork inside the building, which I think is quite good, and so you can gaze at the "View from the Sky Room" photograph that shows a view from the building, looking out through one of the letters of the text from an Obama speech that you can attempt to read if you stand on the ground and gaze upward at the building.

The view from the Sky Room is garish chaos, but the chaos seems designed to give ordinary citizens a place to play, that is, it's not trying to look good, it's trying to offer what can be used. Included in the play equipment is an N.B.A.-size basketball court and a "sledding hill." We'll see how much freewheeling tomfoolery unfolds in this space. The message is casual playfulness for the people, and it is in distinct contrast to the design ideas Trump has been imposing on the White House and elsewhere. His message is grandeur and elegance.

"Across China, hilltops are dotted with wind turbines, and long rows of them span many miles in western deserts."

"Ultrahigh-voltage power lines carry electricity thousands of miles to the energy-hungry factories along China’s coast. Last year, China installed three times as much wind power capacity as the rest of the world combined, even as its turbine exports jumped. The global industry’s center of gravity has shifted decisively: All of the world’s six largest wind turbine manufacturers are Chinese, displacing once-dominant European firms and companies like General Electric...."

I'm reading "As Oil Prices Stay High, China Doubles Down on Wind Power/An industrial policy of subsidies and import restrictions laid the foundations for China to become almost as dominant in wind turbines as in solar panels" (NYT).

Do you wish we were more dominant in wind power, with more hilltops are dotted with wind turbines? Do we want long rows spanning many miles? 

"Your kindness, encouragement, and light-heartedness have written a complex chapter in my heart that I will never stop reading."

Wrote Representative Chuck Edwards, quoted in "Scoop: Rep. Chuck Edwards singled out young female aides for special attention" (Axios).

I've got to give Edwards credit for writing. I like "a complex chapter in my heart that I will never stop reading." It was enough to make me look up where he went to college. Wikipedia says he "attended" Blue Ridge Community College. I think "attended" means he did not graduate. I asked A.I. if that sentence was likely to have been written by A.I., and the answer was no. I'm told that sentence is "poetic but not overly generic or perfectly balanced like much AI romantic prose."

I wondered which party has the burden of this problematic member of Congress and it took me so long to find the answer that I assumed he was a Democrat, but no, he's a Republican. You only get the info in the second-to-last sentence, which tells us that "Edwards... is a top Democratic target in November." I misread that at first.

Edwards succeeded Madison Cawthorn. He was a complex chapter. Remember?

ADDED: I'm not making a new tag for Chuck Edwards, but I already had a tag for Madison Cawthorn. The last time I used it was October 10, 2024, and in that post, as in this one, I asked if you remember him. That was right before the last election, when Elon Musk was proclaiming "I’m not just MAGA, I’m Dark MAGA!" At that time, Wikipedia said that Dark MAGA was "a belief promoted by former U.S. representative Madison Cawthorn that former president Trump would return to power 'with a vengeance.'" And: "Railing against 'the cowardly and weak members of our own party,' Cawthorn wrote [in May 2022]: 'It's time for the rise of the new right, it's time for Dark MAGA to truly take command.'"

Does anyone say "Dark MAGA" anymore? Maybe our eyes have gotten used to the dark. Trump did return to power with a vengeance. 

By the way, Cawthorn is currently running to get back into Congress, but this time it's a different district, Florida's 19th congressional district. His old district was North Carolina's 11th district, so Edwards's difficulties are no help to him.

Sunrise, with moon.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"This isn't a monument to my legacy. It's a gateway to yours."

May the Fourth be with YOU, from the Obama Presidential Center.

Opening June 19. @BarackObama @MarkHamill pic.twitter.com/OzhhUzD789

— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) May 4, 2026

It's "May the Fourth," and they've wheeled out Mark Hamill, who's stuck with a scripted role. He reads it woodenly, perhaps because he feels a little bad that he's required to be an egotist, and humor is wrung out of having Barack Obama insult him for being a narcissist. Why am I being subjected to this?, I wondered, and what is the point of using "Star Wars" to promote the Obama Presidential Center?

I guess it must be because the Center has been likened to certain "Star Wars" images, but not in a good way.

"Ukraine is intensifying drone strikes on Russian oil facilities, hitting a key Black Sea refinery four times in two weeks and setting off a days-long carcinogenic blaze..."

"... that environmentalists say represents one of the country’s worst ecological disasters since the fall of the Soviet Union. A plume of black acrid smoke once again rose over Russia’s Black Sea city of Tuapse on Friday after Ukraine struck the refinery and oil terminal there overnight, the fourth in a spate of attacks that have also caused oily droplets of 'black rain' to fall on residents and contaminated more than 30 miles of coastline as an oil slick spread...."

From "Poisonous black rain falls in Russia as Ukraine strikes oil facilities/Residents of Tuapse, on the Black Sea, complained of an inadequate government response and coverup of what they say is a huge environmental and health disaster" (WaPo).

"A third of children say they have bypassed online age checks in the past two months - some by drawing fake moustaches on their faces to trick facial recognition software."

Euro News reports.

"So much of what we take for granted today — from our meritocratic rat race to our gentrified neighborhoods to our culture of overwork, fitness training and foodie obsession — was born in the yuppie-made 1980s...."

"After the Carter and Reagan administrations loosened the regulations governing Wall Street, finance began to generate a greater share of profits than manufacturing or services. Investment banks and law firms now shaped the fates of the corporations they had once served. As America hitched its fortunes to finance, those banks and firms began to chop up, spin off, merge, offshore or otherwise squeeze short-term value out of the nation’s legacy corporations. But to do it, they needed legions of employees to handle the grunt work: the proofreading, drafting and document review that kept the takeover machinery in motion.... Once they were hired, aspiring yuppies were expected to work more hours, often on smaller and less intellectually demanding piecework. They were also given less meaningful training, all for narrower chances of promotion to partner. As the professional world was beginning to diversify, it became an increasingly miserable place to work.... The exhausting meritocratic contest that furnished them with nice apartments and private-school tuitions had real psychic costs. Between the long hours and the constant pressure for upward mobility, few yuppies actually felt triumphant. They felt burned out. Yuppies were the first class of young people to be drawn into the sweatshop of the meritocracy. Now is the time to rethink the bargain they made...."

Writes history professor Dylan Gottlieb, in "How Yuppies Changed America" (NYT).

"The artist Michaela Stark, who is known for binding her own flesh so that it spills over, confronting those who see it with their own idea of what is considered beautiful..."

"... and who also posed for a Met mannequin — put it... bluntly: 'It institutionalizes the idea that bodies are different.'"

From "The Met Makes a Statement With 9 New Mannequin Bodies/The latest Costume Institute exhibition expands its ideas of who, exactly, belongs in fashion. Will the gala follow suit?" (NYT)(gift link, so you can see the artist's bound flesh spilling over and the quite interesting mannequins in their fashions).

"Stark [said] that the images that come out of the gala matter, especially now. 'Who’s on that red carpet and what their bodies are like is a political statement,' she said. To really inspire change, she said, the party needs at least some 'fabulous fat women wearing fabulous gowns.' 'If it is watered down to an Ozempic-fueled event of skinny girls wearing paintings on the red carpet,' she said, 'that’s an active denial of what this exhibition is really about.'"

The idea of "wearing paintings" relates to the theme of the Met Gala this year, which is something about the way fashion has channeled fine art. We'll see how literally the gala-goers take it. I hope nobody uses the idea of walking about inside a picture frame. 

AND: The Gala is tonight, so watch for the picture frame idea. It's on my bingo card. So is a "Starry Night" star on each breast.

Sunrise.

Do you see the goose couple showing off their babies?

Half an hour later:

The clouds shaped up into what reminded me of something by Thomas Hart Benton:

"[T]he dominant mode in Democratic politics right now. It’s not the rebellion or radicalism manifest in, say..."

"Hasan Piker’s Twitch-streamer Marxism or Zohran Mamdani’s telegenic democratic socialism. Notable as those tendencies may be, the Democrats’ fundamental condition is a late-Trumpian stasis — in which the president’s stark unpopularity encourages his opponents to imagine that they can keep everything basically as it was in the Biden era, with the same broad priorities and deference to activists and interest groups, and float back to power automatically. The continuing appeal of Harris is a useful indicator of this stasis. Yes, she is unlikely to be the 2028 nominee, and part of her support is name recognition...."

Writes Ross Douthat, in "Slouching Toward Kamala Harris" (NYT).

Harris is ahead in the polls for the Democratic nomination in 2028. The Real Clear Politics average has her up by 9.3 percentage points. The most recent poll, from Harvard-Harris — has her up by 28 percentage points. Here's her closest competition:

This is about as bad as I’ve seen him. pic.twitter.com/xksNZfG0BE

— Kira (@Kiradavis) May 3, 2026