The Clancy holdout was the only nonwhite person on the jury, and he was a black man.

NEW: Lindsay Clancy juror Paula Devlin reveals on 'CBS Mornings' that the lone, male holdout juror who voted to find Clancy guilty of murdering her children was the *only* person of color -- a black man.

The 11 not-guilty jurors -- who hectored him for a week to cave -- were all… pic.twitter.com/5qirHNGCyx

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 11, 2026

Imagine how this man felt, how he feels now. The white people all ganged up on him, accused him of being inarticulate and incoherent, impermeable to reason. What a pressure cooker!

***

"Whoa. I have to sit with that for just a second" — Gayle King. Amazing that she was surprised by that. Weren't there pre-interviews to smoke things like that out? Or did they know, mean to suppress it, then realize they needed to get it out and chose Gayle King to perform the necessary theater? If so, she's an excellent actress! She really seems blindsided.

ADDED: Meanwhile, on Oprah's show, a black woman expresses the concern that black women who kill their children will not receive the same compassion that was shown to Lindsay Clancy:

"I’m real and these are my real beliefs. You could ask your xAI researchers about me if you hadn’t fired them."

Said Jacob Coxon, after Elon Musk wrote "Seems like a setup."

Quoted in "AI researcher who warned of ‘disaster’ is now a target of the right/Critics accuse Jacob Coxon of being a plant after he warned of looming 'disaster'" (WaPo)

Coxon is the person we were talking about yesterday, in that post about the believe that A.I. might end the world in the next 10 years. I've updated that post with a video about how instantly Coxon's post went viral, boosted by Bernie Sanders and various high-level Democrats.

Now, reading WaPo, I see that video is part of what's now being disparaged as right-wing targeting. Does WaPo acknowledge what came from Bernie and the Democrats? It interviews Coxon, who is paraphrased saying "he didn’t work with any organizations to promote his announcement before posting it on X."

Loopholes may be found in the words "work," "organizations," and "before." Did he do something other than "work"? Did he work with individuals, e.g. Bernie Sanders, rather than organizations? Did he work with organizations/individuals after he posted? I don't know. I just see the weasel words, WaPo.

I hate to see this issue turn into a left/right face off! Reminds me of climate change. So unhelpful. 

ADDED: From the WaPo article: "[Coxon] faced accusations, with little evidence, from people on the political right claiming that he was a plant meant to scare lawmakers into clamping down on the industry." With little evidence? That means there is evidence, or they'd have used their favorite anti-right-wing phrase, "without evidence."

"Mr. Vance’s scripted, more traditional political delivery cut a sharp contrast with the freewheeling and improvisational style of Mr. Trump."

"In fact, it was Mr. Vance’s unscripted response to the protester, who unfurled Mexican and Palestinian flags, that appeared to most energize the crowd. 'My friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there,' the vice president said, sending the crowd roaring. 'I’ll buy you the plane ticket.'"

From "Vance, Eying 2028, Relishes the Spotlight at Trump’s Convention/The vice president, widely seen as a potential White House candidate, sought to use his speech in Dallas to show a more personal side to the MAGA faithful" (NYT gift link).

"Look, I was in a bar once, and a guy suddenly comes over and starts shouting, 'I’m going to break your f***ing face.'"

"Now in a situation like this, an intelligent guy, a guy like your husband, Tina, is not what I need. I need my guy Keith here. Know what he did with that crazy guy? He BROKE HIS WRIST LIKE A TWIG."

Said Donald Trump, explaining why he had bodyguards, to Tina Brown, on September 10, 2001.

Quoted in "Tina Brown: what Donald Trump said to me the night before 9/11/The night before, the magazine editor was at a fashion show chatting to the future president. The next morning came the horror of the Twin Towers, writes the commentator in an article first published in her Fresh Hell newsletter" (London Times).

Lots more at the link, ending with this summary of 9/11, which I think is the conventional wisdom: "That single moment of terror that brought us together splintered rapidly. We’ve institutionalized distrust and suspicion; we’ve cultivated paranoia. Paradoxically, perhaps, that period of outraged unification led inevitably to the seemingly insuperable partisan divide we now find ourselves facing. Not long after 9/11, Facebook was born, then YouTube and Instagram, and, at first, it felt as if these might become community-making phenomena, safe spaces. Instead, as the iterations of social media pile up and the voices on them multiply, we live in a cacophony of chaos. Celebrity culture, far from fading, has become the only culture we know, its ultimate expression now incinerating the White House."

It is the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

That's my photograph, taken in the evening, in 2007, when a low cloud kept the memorial lights from projecting upward and the light spread horizontally.

The quarter-century mark feels important — I was 50 when it happened, I'm 75 now — but I will repeat what I said in 2022: "I don't like terrorists squatting on the calendar, forcing us into darkness every 365 days. We must honor the dead? But if we truly ordered our life around honoring the dead, every day of the year would be a somber day of commemoration. Instead, we have a scattering of death days on the American calendar. Why those and not others? What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"

There is always a low cloud keeping us from seeing the full picture. 

Sunrise.

Open thread in the comments.

"There's something about when [women who don't have kids] get past the reproductive age that they get like very invested in politics."

"It's, like, you don't even have a world to protect. You don't have children. So you don't have a world to make better for the children. And you got maybe 20 years left, right?... You'll be 77/78 years old and you'll probably be basically dead.... So why are you so invested in all the other people's problems of the world when your life is a fucking mess? Because you've infantilized the world. You've turned the culture into your children and that's why they're scolding. That's the scolding aspect that you get... And... from men that don't have children. They get older, they get a there's a scolding political aspect of it. They never had children. Instead of just, like, having opinions on things and being able to debate your opinions of why you think that way, there's a scolding of people who disagree...."

A theory of gender politics, from Joe Rogan.

The idea seems to be that women — not all women, but most — are natural scolds, and if they don't have children to scold, they're going to range freely, looking for adults to scold.

"Whenever something is exclusive, limited and luxurious, automatically consumer psychology wants it."

"It’s like handbags. Why is someone buying a Chanel versus that? It’s not because of the leathers. It’s to show that they have a Chanel and they can afford it."

Says Nabila Popal, a director of a market research firm, quoted in "Foldable Phones Are Unpopular. Why Is Apple Selling One? The company unveiled a new iPhone that costs $1,999. Here are the economics behind that price tag" (NYT gift link).

I think some high-priced things evoke laughter and You bought that?!

To get you started thinking of some of these things, I found "Wastes of Money Sold to You by Luxury Retailers" (Cheapism). I kind of want the hippopotamus sofa.

"A male juror in the mistrial of Lindsay Clancy said the lone holdout... wrapped one of the exercise bands the mom used to kill her children around a water bottle..."

"... to mimic their strangulation in the deliberation room. Juror number 10 Nick Dargie said the holdout had every right to his opinion but that the reenactment using the same exercise bands left the room speechless. 'I was so shocked. We’re not here to play detective – it’s not a game of Clue. This is serious,' Dargie, 25, the fifth juror to come forward in the macabre case out of Duxbury, Mass., told ABC’s 'GMA'.... 'I asked him why are you doing that? That’s a band that was used to strangle a child. That’s disgusting.'"

The NY Post reports.

"We'll work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life, right here in the Steel Valley."

Said Democratic Senator John Fetterman, by video, at the GOP convention, introducing a man he called "my friend," Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Dave McCormick.

"We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans. I personally think it is greater than 10% within the next decade."

ADDED: Who is that guy, Jacob Coxon? He came out of nowhere, and his post was quickly retweeted by many prominent Democrats:

"Trump pledges $5,000 ‘dividend’ to all US adults if the GOP wins the midterms/It was not immediately clear how the plan would be financed."

Politico reports.

Is that, like, a satire of what Democrats do?

Here's how he put it: "I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000, very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders or like last year when I gave our great members of the military $1,776."

I remember getting thousands of dollars during the pandemic....

"Supreme Court Again Blocks Republican-Backed Missouri Voting Map."

"The ruling deferred to Missouri’s state Supreme Court, which had invalidated G.O.P.-friendly district lines, saying voters must first have an opportunity to approve the map in a statewide referendum."

NYT gift link.

Everybody is a star.

Ducks in this morning's sunrise, by Meade:

The song — "Everybody Is a Star" — came up in conversation just now. The tag suggestions for the first post of the day included George Prescott Bush, and I was wondering whatever happened to him. Remember when he was the anointed one? As Grok put it: "Bilingual son of a Mexican-born mother, Navy Reserve tour in Afghanistan, Rice and UT Law, telegenic, already campaigning for family members as a teenager. Consultants in the 2000s literally nicknamed him '47.'" He was like Schlossberg. Maybe people don't like an heir apparent. We prefer somebody who came out of nowhere. 

"The sad thing is a third of our nation has no clue what we're talking about."

"They haven't — they never witnessed the sacrifice and the courage and the dedication to serve a neighbor in need."

ADDED: The full appearance:

This morning's sunrise, in the rain.

This post is tonight's open thread. Scroll down for the 7th anniversary of the sunrise project, with the 19 best photos of the year — here.