"Rivera had never hiked before. He’d never been camping. For his trip across the United States, he chose the most direct route the map showed..."

"... which mostly meant walking on highway shoulders, drowning out the car traffic with his big headphones on.... 'You doing all right?' a law enforcement officer in Indiana asked. 'We got a call that you were pulling a cart and looked exhausted,' the officer continued. 'Just wanted to make sure you were all right.' 'Yeah, I’m good,' Rivera said. 'I’m walking across America.'... 'People are like, What are you doing?' Rivera said. 'What are you doing it for? When I tell them I’m walking across America — "Oh, what’s your reason?" You need to have a reason? I just want to be free. I’m just walking because I’m using my free will. That’s it.'"

From "He Felt Stuck in New York. So He Started Walking to California. A Bronx native who’d spent his whole life in the city left on foot in May" (NYT).

Here's his Instagram. Sample:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Chantz Mula (@yo.mula)

Pick another protein?!

If he wins, this has to go down as one of the best political ads of all time.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 5, 2026

I made a "Scott Colom" tag, so that means I think he's going to win. But it's very close. See "A Viral Ad and a Trump Rally Visit Helped a Democrat Compete in Mississippi/Scott Colom, a Democrat, ran a viral ad and courted Republicans at a Trump rally before winning virtually the same number of votes as Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican" (NYT).

Just thinking about dreams where the umbrella is folded.

Fr. Antonio Spadaro has revealed that Pope Leo XIV introduced himself to Bob Dylan as a 'a son of St. Augustine' in reference to Dylan's song 'I Dreamed I saw Saint Augustine' https://t.co/PTfopIuE51

— Catholic Arena (@CatholicArena) November 4, 2026

I'm struck that Bob brought his umbrella along. You'd think he'd have someone to hold it for him as he approached the Pope. He must have wanted it for its real or symbolic meaning. 

My post title refers to the only Bob Dylan song with an umbrella, "Series of Dreams (Studio Outtake — 1989)": 

Just thinking of a series of dreams

Dreams where the umbrella is folded
Into the path you are hurled
And the cards are no good that you’re holding
Unless they’re from another world

A folded umbrella may symbolize an awareness of vulnerability. You've brought the umbrella, but you have not opened it. You would never need to open it indoors. In fact, it's an old superstition: opening an umbrella indoors is bad luck.

In the song, there is bad luck, even though the umbrella is folded: "the cards are no good." For good luck, Bob is relying on the possibility that the cards are "from another world." 

Russell Brand convicted of rape.

Russell Brand is convicted of rape and sexual assault charges on allegations dating back more than 20 years. The judge said Brand would receive a prison sentence. https://t.co/5WoLOrtk6U https://t.co/XLDt4kpBAK

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 5, 2026

Someone put this montage up on X, for what it's worth.

Of course Russell Brand is guilty.
He's joking about it all here.
Narcissistic nonce. pic.twitter.com/XjnawkK0h6

— funkybanana (@funkybananaskin) November 5, 2026

The comedian was being comedic/The rapist was being rapey/The rapist was being comedic/The comedian was being rapey.

Did moderates do so well in the elections because people were getting their information from talking to A.I.?

"What if the dilettante’s perpetual movement from one thing to another is not a failure of nerve but a different and defensible way of being..."

"... one whose exploratory zeal turns out to be just what a hyper-specialised, over-optimised and all-too-serious world needs most? Then the dilettante would turn out to be not a capricious buffoon but a kind of modern anti-hero. That, I argue, is a dilettantism worth defending...."

Writes Nigel Warburton, in "In praise of the dilettante/A wayfaring cosmopolitan who never gets stuck, the dilettante is the right anti-hero for our hyper-specialised age" (Aeon).

I was moved to make a tag for "dilettante"! It seemed absurd, at first, but once I saw the old posts to which I could add it, I liked it:

1. "But 'dilettante' is one of those words which deter people from taking up new pursuits as adults."

2. "And so if what you're trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then you end up being a dilettante but you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you." 

3. "One moment they are a king, the next a murderer, a jaded dilettante, a passionate and forsaken lover...." 

4. "It must gall Biden to know that his predecessor... actually installed his dilettante daughter and-son-in-law at the highest level of policymaking...."

5. "[S]he is a millionaire dilettante, despite the fact she drives a Prius and lives in a modest Madison home...."

6."The mountains are the artifice of a clever scene painter... it is as if the whole region were an album, the mountains drawn on a blank page by an adroit dilettante for the lady who owns the album...."

7. "It is precisely at times of chaos that morally informed but tough-minded triage decisions must be made, otherwise morality is simply a dilettante’s luxury and a mere intellectual puzzle for the philosophy classroom, but irrelevant on the street."

8. "He's no dilettante. He's the real deal when it comes to being a celebrity judge... He's an ardent and opinionated fan of the show.''

Wednesday morning, 6:13 a.m. — sunrise was at 6:36 — the rain made things extra dark.

"Vice President JD Vance, a potential 2028 presidential contender, broke sharply with the president in owning the failures of the administration’s policies."

That's the WaPo subheadline, under the headline "Vance blames Republicans’ midterm losses on Iran war, cost of living" (gift link).

Here, read Vance's post. It doesn't strike me as a "sharp break" from Trump. I see it as just analyzing the  substance of yesterday's big losses:

The meeting between Pope Leo and Dylan—who wore a black hooded sweatshirt—was brief, consisting of greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges."

"The Holy Father presented the singer with a rosary, while Dylan reciprocated with a book: Chronicles: Volume One, his autobiography, which has been published in the United States and other countries around the world."

Vatican News reports.

Pope Leo XIV met with American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in a private audience on Wednesday, November 4. https://t.co/7OAJcluj0n

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) November 4, 2026

Is the Pope mentioned in "Chronicles: Volume One"? Yes

"'I will forever mourn not having a daughter... I cry about it regularly.' Brazell’s complicated feelings are part of a larger conversation about 'gender disappointment'..."

I'm reading "Bye bye boys! The provocative reason so many moms now only want girls" (NY Post).

What's the "provocative reason"? 

I think that language refers to this quote from Heidi Murkoff, author of "What to Expect When You’re Expecting": "It’s being driven by a social-media and media generated narrative about toxic masculinity that’s become pervasive and self-perpetuating, but that’s really not grounded in biological fact."

That makes little sense to me. If you're genuinely worried about "toxic masculinity," you'd be better off with a boy. 1. You'd be actively involved in the development of one man and you could try to make him nontoxic, and 2. If you have a daughter, she's likely to want a man for a partner, and if he's toxic, that will be truly painful. 

"At first, he kept his apartment and a few changes of clothes. But gradually and methodically, Greenfield embraced asceticism and dedicated himself to it full-time."

"He let go of his possessions, as well as his connections to the government and commercial society. He has no phone, car, driver’s license, passport, health insurance, property, bank accounts or credit cards. He wears biodegradable clothing and has not paid taxes or taken pharmaceuticals for more than a decade. He lives under the poverty level, and said he has no romantic or sexual attachments. He brushes his teeth with a twig.... He likens his practices to those of wandering sadhus, holy men who take vows of poverty and celibacy to pursue spiritual freedom in India....  In June, he offended a group of women in California who had picked him up in a car to look for mushrooms. He was expecting just one person, he told them curtly, announcing that he did not like surprises, recalled a woman who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she is part of a tight-knit foraging community where Greenfield is revered. The difference between the mild-mannered online persona — an amalgam of Henry David Thoreau and the Dude — and the aggravated guy in the back seat was upsetting, she said."

From "He Wants to Be One With Nature. But He Can’t Quit Instagram. Once, Robin Greenfield aspired to wealth. Now, he has no home and eats from the earth. He chronicles it all on social media, but does the persona match the man?" (NYT).

I blogged about Greenfield a couple weeks ago, here, but there's different material in this NYT article and more skepticism about the man. 

Also, here's the list of 100 things Greenfield came up with back in 2020 — positive changes he wanted to make in his life — to "live free of lies and corruption." Much of it is what you might predict from a radical environmentalist, so let me — a connoisseur of travel critique — focus on the part about travel:

"[I]n Thailand... Buddhism has blended with a mélange of other spiritual traditions like animism, Hindu rituals and Chinese astrology to create a strong affinity for the supernatural in contemporary life."

"'In Thailand, superstition isn’t the opposite of modernity — it lives comfortably alongside it,' said Theeranuch Pusaksrikit, a business school professor at Chulalongkorn University....  'Each hospital has their own superstition culture,' [Thanat Tantinam, a colorectal surgeon, said]. He has also heard of colleagues avoiding nuts, pizza or coffee while at work, and knows of at least one hospital where bananas — otherwise regarded as a lucky food — are taboo.... But few medical superstitions have been as universal and long-running as the KFC curse...."

From "Why Doctors in Thailand Fear KFC/In a country where superstitions are as imaginative as they are many, physicians have come to fear a jinx involving Kentucky Fried Chicken" (NYT).

"Wisconsin voters have spoken, and Democrats will hold a governing trifecta for the first time in nearly two decades."

"Governor-elect David Crowley, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein will set the agenda in Madison.... The new Democratic leadership also lacks any real private-sector experience. Crowley built his career in campaign organizing and political staff work. Neubauer and Hesselbein have the same resume. They know politics. Being good at politics will mean paying back their powerful political allies.... Many newly elected Democrats presented themselves as moderates; their leadership team has a different agenda. Wisconsin’s strengths—our workforce, our communities, and our tradition of common-sense governance—are durable. Republicans will work every day to protect those strengths, highlight what is working, and prepare for the moment when voters again choose balance and results over one-party control...."

Writes Robin Vos, who has been the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly since 2013.

"Impeaching Trump is a bad idea. I want to be clear that we believe that Trump commits five impeachable offenses before breakfast every morning."

"So this is not a question of his culpability. This is a question of political reality, and the reality is there’s literally zero chance that he will be removed from office unless he does something even more egregious. Impeaching him for a third time without succeeding in removal isn’t a good idea and it would send voters a message that we’re not listening. Voters are saying, yes we are concerned about corruption and of course Congress should do oversight, but mostly what they’re saying is, 'help me in my life right now because I am struggling.'"

Said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, quoted in "Will Trump be impeached? What happens now Democrats have won the midterms/Figures in the party that has won back control of Congress are wary of a third failure to remove the president and may target Pete Hegseth instead" (London Times).

Meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries has said: "One of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town."

"Many voters told pollsters and interviewers that they felt hoodwinked by Mr. Trump, believing that he was going to bring down prices and not start new wars."

"They expected him to close the border, but bristled at what they saw as heavy-handed arrests of people living in the country for years. They rebelled against the tariffs that increased costs for consumers. The way Mr. Trump spent his last day before the election proved to be a metaphor for how out of sync his political instincts were with the season. Instead of emphasizing plans to address the cost of living worries weighing on many voters, he delivered his final pre-election address at the Reflecting Pool, talking about algae and pipes."

Writes Peter Baker, in "Angry Voters Usher in Beginning of the End to the Trump Era/The electoral backlash extended even into deep red states and indicated that President Trump has lost his hold over the coalition that lifted him to the White House twice" (NYT).

"I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP."

Wrote Trump, on Truth Social, 7 hours ago.

6 hours ago, he wrote: "I’m going to become a Political Pundit, both good and bad, on the reasons these Candidates won and lost! President DONALD J. TRUMP."

It's pretty obvious how this punditry will go. 3 minutes before that post, he'd opined on Greg Abbott: "If Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn’t have lost. He went back to his original formula, and it wasn’t pretty! President DONALD J. TRUMP."