Bluestem.

"He had thought about hiking the Appalachian Trail since a seventh-grade teacher discussed it in class — it had opened in full in 1937 — and he started planning it..."

"... in quiet moments at his first job, in sales training for a hardware company, which he didn’t like. He bought a used backpack from an Army surplus store, hiking shoes from L.L. Bean, a canvas tent and a rain poncho. He carried a Boy Scout knife, cooking utensils, a miner’s carbide lamp and two canteens, one for water and the other for gasoline to fuel his tiny stove. His meals included dehydrated mashed potatoes and boiled cornmeal with sugar, raisins and powdered milk.... Food and supplies for his hike cost Mr. Espy about $300. When his trek ended, he hitchhiked to Boston, where he spent $100 on new clothes and a bus ticket back to Georgia...."

From "Gene Espy, Pioneering Hiker of the Appalachian Trail, Dies at 98/In 1951, always an adventurer, he was the second person to walk the trail in a 'thru-hike,' from Georgia to Maine, in an arduous 123 days. He later met the first to do so" (NYT).

"He’s very concerned. How do they say it, this is for all the tea in China. This is serious."

"He" = Trump.

The quote is from John Catsimatidis, "a billionaire grocery and oil magnate in New York," who says he's just talked with Trump about this.

Quoted in "Trump Advisers Have Discussed a Job for Adams if He Quits Mayor’s Race/The conversations have also involved Curtis Sliwa with the goal of giving Andrew Cuomo a better chance of defeating Zohran Mamdani in November" (NYT).

Are New Yorkers going to be responsive to Trump's meddling in their local election? Cuomo wants to return to power like that? Seems wrong. And why would we the people of the whole United States want Adams and Sliwa handling whatever it is they'd be given? Let New York be New York. The people responded to Mamdani. That's democracy. Deal with it.

"Why Don't You... Cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt banded with bamboo, and pin with colored thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?"

Wrote Diana Vreeland, quoted in "Diana Vreeland Asks, Why Don't You.... Diana Vreeland helmed the stylish pages of BAZAAR for 25 years. During that time she penned an advice column with extravagant ideas for the modern woman. We rounded up 12 of Vreeland's most outrageous and stylish suggestions. Check back every week for new audacious advice. So, why don't you..." 

Harper's Bazaar did that round-up in 2014, and Diana Vreeland worked there from 1936 until 1962 and then at Vogue from 1962 to 1971. I got sidetracked into the topic of Diana Vreeland after blogging about the Vogue editorship passing from Anna Wintour to Chloe Malle. As I noted in the comments section to that earlier post, I had a job in the early 1970s that required me to read Vogue (among many other magazines) ever month. I was intensely aware that there had been an earlier era that was so much wilder and crazier.

But the pink bulletin board with thumbtacks seems within anyone's reach. I assume "pin with colored thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms" means use colored thumb-tacks to pin up slips of paper upon which you've written words representing whatever you're currently feeling enthusiastic about.

"It’s time this government told the police their job is to protect the public, not monitor social media for hurty words."

Said Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, quoted in "Comedian Graham Linehan arrested over trans tweets/The 57-year-old TV writer says he has been ordered not to use the social media platform X while he has been released on bail after being detained by armed police at Heathrow" (London Times).

"Hurty words" is a useful and musical phrase. Badenoch didn't coin it. I'm seeing, from back in March 2024 in the London Times, "Islamophobic tweets just ‘hurty words’, says mayoral candidate/Susan Hall, the Tory hoping to run London, was responding to claims about Sadiq Khan and Londonistan.'" Someone in the comments there writes: "Anyone using the infantile term 'hurty words' calls into question their suitability for high office." Is it infantile or is it a satirical way to accuse those who are complaining about hurtful speech of being big babies?

"How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?"

Yesterday, in the Oval Office, Peter Doocy asked Trump: "How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?... People didn't see you for a couple days, 1.3 million user engagements as of Saturday morning about your demise. "

TRUMP: "Really? I didn't see that. You know, I have heard — it's sort of crazy — but last week I did numerous news conferences, all successful. They went very well. Like this is going very well. And then I didn't do any for two days and they said there must be something wrong with him. Biden wouldn't do them for months. You wouldn't see him. And nobody ever said there was ever anything wrong with him. And we know he wasn't in the greatest of shape. No, I heard that. I get reports now. You knew I did an interview that lasted for about an hour and a half with somebody and everybody saw that was on one of your competitors. Uh I did numerous uh shows and also did a number of Truths, long Truths. I think pretty poignant Truths. No, I was very active over the weekend. They also knew I went out to visit some people at the at the club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River. And no, I've been very active actually over the weekend. I didn't hear that one. That's pretty serious...."

Also, at 31:20, Doocy gets another question and asks about the mysterious throwing of something out of a White House window.

"The new job is not quite the same role that has made Wintour one of the most recognisable women in the world with her signature blow-dried bob and sunglasses and just-as-famous froideur."

"Instead, the title is 'head of editorial content, US'.... Over three decades, Wintour has transformed fashion from a mainly trade-facing industry to a billion-dollar celebrity and pop culture vehicle.She has turned Vogue from a monthly print magazine into an omnichannel digital brand.... 'Anna is basically the CEO of fashion and this new job isn’t that,' says a fashion veteran who did not want to be named. 'As we’ve seen at the other editions, these heads of content aren’t mini editors-in-chief — they’re quite muted figures. This person might be seen as ‘the new Anna’ from the outside, but Anna is still very much in control.'...There are those who say that, rather than marking a new era, this job indicates the end of one. As one industry stalwart puts it: 'This is very much an assistant position. Vogue dies with Anna.'"

From "Chloe Malle steps into Anna Wintour’s shoes at US Vogue/The fashion doyenne has stepped back from the day-to-day US Vogue editorship. Chloe Malle, the daughter of Candice Bergen and Louis Malle, has been confirmed as her replacement" (London Times).

The headline on the home page of The Times calls Chloe Malle "the daughter of Hollywood Royalty." Imagine having such parents!

"I have long thought that Humphrey’s Executor should be overruled because it is inconsistent with the Constitution’s vesting of all executive power in the President..."

"... and with more recent Supreme Court decisions. Of course, I agree with my colleagues that only the Supreme Court may overrule its precedents.... Granting a stay of the district court’s injunction, however, does not require this court to claim that Humphrey’s Executor has been overruled. Instead, the stay is warranted by the Supreme Court’s decisions to stay injunctions ordering the reinstatement of removed officers.... Everyone agrees that FTC commissioners are principal officers who exercise 'substantial executive power.'... The Constitution establishes three departments of the federal government, and the so-called independent agencies are necessarily part of the Executive Branch, not some headless fourth branch. Commissioners of the FTC exercise 'considerable executive power,' and such officers are not entitled to reinstatement while they litigate the lawfulness of their removal...."

Writes Judge Neomi Rao, dissenting, in Slaughter v. Trump. 

The NYT article about the case is "Federal Appeals Court Reinstates an F.T.C. Commissioner Fired by Trump/The court said the commissioner, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, had been illegally terminated 'without cause.'" Excerpt: "Since March, the F.T.C. has been led only by Republicans. Ms. Slaughter said in an interview Tuesday evening that she planned to go to the F.T.C. on Wednesday morning to work."

Here's the Wikipedia article on Humphrey's Executor. Excerpt: "The case involved William E. Humphrey, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) whom President Franklin D. Roosevelt had fired. Roosevelt had fired Humphrey over their policy disagreements involving economic regulation and the New Deal, even though the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 prohibited firing an FTC commissioner for any reason other than 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.'"

FDR wrote to Humphrey: "You will, I know, realize that I do not feel that your mind and my mind go along together on either the policies or the administering of the Federal Trade Commission, and, frankly, I think it is best for the people of this country that I should have a full confidence."

"Extremely disrespectful to show me up like that in the first inning after hitting a home run. Standing there, watching it, taking your sweet time getting down to first base...."

"I just find that extremely disrespectful, and I felt that I needed to let him know about that."

Said the Colorado Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland, quoted in "Rafael Devers’ homer sparks wild, ejection-filled Giants-Rockies brawl" (NY Post).

The video focuses on the flight of the ball — the typical theater of a home run with the announcer waiting forever to call it "Gone!" and the fans in the bleachers scrambling for their souvenir — so we join the showing of "disrespect" in progress. We don't see the "standing there, watching it" and what must have been the most annoying part of "taking your sweet time":

BENCHES CLEAR IN COLORADO! 😳

Rafael Devers crushes a home run and doesn't even get to second base before everyone is on the field. pic.twitter.com/1DbNxFR5er

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) September 3, 2025

The Rockies are by far the worst team in baseball. They've lost 100 games and are 12 games behind the next worst team. I guess taunting them is experienced as especially mean — downright cruel.

ADDED: Here's more complete video that goes back and replay the full showing of "disrespect":

Eh. I blame Freeland.

Sunrise — 5:53.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"Liebich has vigorously resisted suggestions of taking this step to satirise the authorities, rather than out of a wish to live as a woman."

Link to the London Times.

It should be noted that "Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, said Liebich had 'abused' the new gender self-identification law and it needed to be tightened up."

"A new world order is being created, new rules of a multipolar world, a new balance of power, which is extremely important for stability in the world."

"Being part of such discussions means supporting dialogue and not acting like a sulking little child. This is how the EU and its representatives behave today."

Said Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, "the only European Union leader present at the parade," quoted in "Kim Jong-un joins Xi and Putin in China for military parade/The North Korean leader has travelled in an armoured train to Beijing for a display of anti-West solidarity with other leaders at the SCO summit" (London Times).

"The 'Father Ted' writer Graham Linehan has revealed that he was arrested on Monday by 5 armed police officers on arrival at Heathrow airport over 3 tweets about transgender activists...."

The London Times reports.

Linehan told The Times: “I was outraged by what happened. I’d just travelled ten hours from Arizona to voluntarily appear in another court case and they thought they had to send armed police to get me." 

"I was arrested for messages on X when I haven’t even been banned from X. The tweets are not my best work but they are completely harmless. I’m furious about what is happening to women in the UK and I despise trans activists because I think they are homophobic and misogynist.... I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me and banned from speaking online — all because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers. To me, this proves one thing beyond doubt: the UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.”

The Times prints the tweets in question:

Bill Maher has another awkward conversation with an over-90 celebrity he admired when he was a kid. And he's 71.

Last week it was Barbara Eden. This week it's Woody Allen.

 

MAHER: You say... in your unconvincing defense of how you're not an intellectual...  that you never read "Great Expectations," you never read "Ulysses," you never read "1984," "Catch 22, "Don Quixote"....

WOODY: That's right. I've never read any of the ones you've just mentioned.

MAHER: I've read 'em all. You want to get the skinny on them. You want to, you want to get...

WOODY: Yeah, you could condense 'em? 

MAHER: Yeah, well... 

WOODY: I hadn't the patience to read any of them. I was never a reader. I never enjoyed reading as a kid.

Sunrise — 5:54, 6:24.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

(And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.)

"May God watch over our Afghan people. War, earthquakes, poverty — every hardship is a test from God."

Said a man named Said Meer, one of many Afghans who are returning to Afghanistan after being expelled from Pakistan, quoted in "Earthquake in Afghanistan Leaves More Than 800 Dead/The quake, near the border with Pakistan, injured more than 2,500 people in mountainous areas that rescue workers took hours to reach" (NYT).

We're told it was a 6.0-magnitude earthquake.