Listening to ice melt.

Today, in the late afternoon, the ice on Lake Mendota was melting and flowing noisily.

(Write about anything you want in the comments.)

"Kristi Noem and Vivek Ramaswamy Are CPAC’s Choices for Trump’s Running Mate."

 The NYT reports.

Of course, Trump won the straw poll for President. It was 95% to 5%.

I watched most of Trump's speech to CPAC. You can watch here (start at 1:59:00):

UPDATE, 6:48 pm CST: Trump is about to make his victory speech in South Carolina.

"During an evening ostensibly aimed at promoting Kennedy at the expense of both his major-party opponents, [Adam] Carolla..."

".... acknowledged the fact that Biden had been the main target. 'I guess we should throw in a couple of Trump jokes while we’re here,' he said. The media and justice system, Carolla said, are 'turning Trump into a martyr … but not a traditional martyr' — not 'skinny guys in bathrobes' like Gandhi and Jesus. 'You don’t think about fat guys eating KFC on a private jet and banging Eurotrash.'"

From "RFK Jr.’s comedy night: Barbs for Biden, but the joke may be on Trump/The L.A. fundraiser featuring Adam Carolla, Jeremy Piven and others seemed to appeal to Kennedy-curious voters who might otherwise support the Republican" (WaPo).

"If Wendy was of sound mind when she was filming, she would have never allowed for them to tape her like that. She never allowed to be seen without her hair."

From "'SHE DIDN'T KNOW'/Wendy Williams ‘did not realize she was filming a documentary’ in dementia struggle as Lifetime show preps for release/'Wendy would not have allowed herself to be seen sans wig'" (The Sun).

See also, "Wendy Williams documentary will still air this weekend after legal guardian files lawsuit against Lifetime’s parent company" (CNN).

"Scientific papers are like someone’s dating profile on an app."

"They’re picking what pictures to show you and what stories to tell you. You don’t get to see the whole library of photos on their phone. Researchers are only presenting a sliver of what they’ve actually done. And just like a dating app on your phone, everything is inaccurate."

From "We’re Not Curing Cancer Here, Guys/Are leading scientists just making stuff up? Vinay Prasad breaks down the cancer research scandal" (The Free Press).

"Evangelical tradition has built a public identity around being pro-family and pro-children, and many adherents are inclined to see I.V.F. positively..."

"... because it creates more children.... But the Alabama decision 'is a very morally honest opinion,' said Andrew T. Walker, associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The ruling, he said, shows the direct line of reasoning between belief that life begins at conception, and opposition to abortion and I.V.F. 'It’s going to force conservative Christians to reckon with potentially their own complicity in the in vitro fertilization industry,' he said. The Roman Catholic Church is perhaps the largest institution in the world that opposes I.V.F. Nearly all modern fertility interventions are morally forbidden. The I.V.F. process typically includes many elements that the Catholic Church opposes. There’s masturbation — an 'offense against chastity,' according to the catechism, or teaching — often required to collect sperm. There’s the fertilization of an egg and sperm outside a woman’s body — outside the sacramental 'conjugal act' of sex between a husband and wife. And there is the creation of multiple embryos that are often destroyed or not implanted — an 'abortive practice.'..."

From "What Christian Traditions Say About I.V.F. Treatments/While Catholic teaching expressly forbids in vitro fertilization, Protestants tend to be more open" (NYT).

"Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced plans late Thursday for approval of 3,000 new settlement homes..."

"... after Israeli police said Palestinian gunmen opened fire near the existing Maale Adumim settlement, killing one Israeli and wounding five. The expansion plans, he said, were part of 'deepening our eternal grip on the entire Land of Israel.' 'This is outrageous' after all the U.S. backing the Israeli government has received in the past several months, a former Biden official said. 'For Smotrich to go and do this is just basically an F-you.'"

From "White House reverses West Bank policy, calling Israeli settlements illegal/The decision was in response to reports that the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning further settlement expansion, an official said" (WaPo).

"I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me..."

"... because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. I’m being indicted for you, the American people. I’m being indicted for you, the Black population. I am being indicted for a lot of different groups by sick people, these are sick sick people.... Some of the greatest evils in our nation's history have come from corrupt systems that try to target and subjugate others to deny them their freedom and to deny them their rights. I think that's why the Black people are so much on my side now because they see what's happening to me happens to them.... My mug shot — we’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know, they do shirts and they sell them for $19 apiece. It’s pretty amazing — millions by the way."

Said Donald Trump, yesterday in South Carolina, as he received the "Champion of Black America" award from the Black Conservative Federation. He was quoted in "Trump says 'the Black people' like him because he's been 'discriminated against' in the legal system/In a speech to a group of Black conservatives, he also said Black Americans "embraced" his mug shot more than anyone else" (NBC News).

The tone of voice may affect how you interpret that:

Trump at the Black Conservative Federation Gala: I got indicted and lot of people said that’s why the black people like me… pic.twitter.com/QENwQvvyLI

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 24, 2024

Trump: I’m being indicted for the Black population pic.twitter.com/8abSxWdCcZ

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 24, 2024

He also called Joe Biden a racist: "Joe Biden really has proven to be a very nasty and vicious racist. He's been a racist. Whether you like it or don't like it. I happen not to like it. Joe Biden really has proven to be a very nasty and vicious racist. He's been a racist. Whether you like it or don't like it. I happen not to like it.... Biden spent years palling around with notorious segregationist you know that." I don't know what that refers to — some Senator who got elected and therefore received the conventional collegiality of the Senate? If that's all it is, the missing name is Strom Thurmond. Other than that "palling around" reference, I'm just seeing the repeated blunt assertion that Joe Biden has been a racist. Adding "nasty and vicious" or "very nasty and vicious" explains nothing.

And here's some edgy racial humor. I think it's a reversal of the old (and stupid) observation that black people are hard to see in the dark: White people are hard to see in the light....

Trump: These lights are so bright in my eyes I can't see people... I can only see the Black ones. I can't see any white ones. That's how far I've come. That's a long way isn't it? pic.twitter.com/CBBJWJRxnH

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 24, 2024

ADDED: At the same event, Trump does a pretty funny imitation of Biden:

Sunrise — 6:27, 6:43, 6:46, 6:47.

"[W]hat often starts as a parent’s effort to jump-start a child’s modeling career, or win favors from clothing brands, can quickly descend..."

"... into a dark underworld dominated by adult men, many of whom openly admit on other platforms to being sexually attracted to children, an investigation by The New York Times found.... Some parents are the driving force behind the sale of photos, exclusive chat sessions and even the girls’ worn leotards and cheer outfits to mostly unknown followers. The most devoted customers spend thousands of dollars nurturing the underage relationships.... 'I really don’t want my child exploited on the internet,' said Kaelyn, a mother in Melbourne, Australia... 'But she’s been doing this so long now.... Her numbers are so big. What do we do? Just stop it and walk away?'"

From "A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men/Seeking social media stardom for their underage daughters, mothers post images of them on Instagram. The accounts draw men sexually attracted to children, and they sometimes pay to see more" (NYT). 

"I’m glad that Google overplayed their hand with their AI image generation, as it made their insane racist, anti-civilizational programming clear to all."

Tweeted Elon Musk... and I didn't understand that and was about to Google for an answer before noticing the irony, so I decided to blog about it, here on my Google-owned blogging platform.

Let's see: Business Insider has "Elon Musk is accusing Google of running 'insane racist, anti-civilizational programming' with its AI":

"The kind of folks that were Tea Party in 2010 are part of the MAGA movement in 2024. We owe all this to the Tea Party."

Said Scott Huffmon, a Winthrop University polisci professor, quoted in "How Did Haley’s South Carolina Become Trump Country? Ask the Tea Party. Veterans of the conservative, grass-roots movement see the state’s presidential primary as a fight between a 'crazy uncle' and a 'snowflake niece.' They’ve made their choice" (NYT).

Mr. Trump... made few gestures toward the libertarian economics championed by the Tea Party.... Instead, he had won attention from Tea Partiers by fanning the flames of conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama’s birth certificate and the construction of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan.

Some national Tea Party organizers had labored to keep such preoccupations on the fringes of the movement, but they remained persistent among its rank-and-file supporters and local activists.

“It was an ethnonationalist passion about a changing America,” said Theda Skocpol, a Harvard University professor of government and sociology who has studied the Tea Party movement. “And that is something that Trump ended up picking up on.”...

Kid Rock explains his relationship to Bud Light.

Here's the whole episode. If you want to hear him talk about Trump, start at 1:15:11:

Sunrise — 6:47, 6:51, 6:52, 7:09.

"Shabbat is one of the most radical things you could do. One of the reasons we have a climate crisis right now is a product of disconnection..."

"... the result of undervaluing life, especially nonhuman life. Shabbat is a time of remembering we’re not machines; we get to be human with all other life. That kind of connection is what powers environmental and climate movements."

Says Rabbi Laura Bellows of Dayenu, "an organization mobilizing the United States’ Jewish community to confront the climate crisis," quoted in "Why reviving a 2,600-year-old spiritual practice made my life better" (WaPo).

This essay, by Michael J. Coren, begins with a focus on his own psychological wellbeing, as the essay title suggests, but it quickly devolves into a discussion of climate change, replete with suggestions of compulsory observance of the Sabbath:

"Children at a Brooklyn public elementary school are being taught revolutionary politics and communist terms from a Black Lives Matter coloring book..."

"Last week, teachers at PS 321—the kindergarten through fifth grade school in Park Slope—supplied students with the coloring book, What We Believe, as part of a lesson for Black History Month.Lessons in the coloring book tell children to reflect on Black Lives Matter’s 13 principles. Some of the exercises, parents said, appear innocuous; a page about 'Restorative Justice,' for example, asks students: 'Why is it important to offer to forgive someone?' But another, entitled 'Transgender Affirming,' instructs students to read the book When Aidan Became a Brother about a girl who transitions to a boy, and then answer questions on a worksheet like, 'How do you feel when someone tells you what you can or can’t do based on your gender?'"

"Kids Get Schooled on Radical Politics/Students at a public elementary school in Brooklyn are learning revolutionary theory from a Black Lives Matter coloring book."

I don't see "transgender affirming" ideology in the question "How do you feel when someone tells you what you can or can’t do based on your gender?" The question strongly implies that you can do what you want regardless of gender and that it is ignorant to associate preferences and interests with gender. That undercuts those who think that that they have an inward gender that is different from their physical bodily sex. It seems to me that it is encouraging kids to see themselves and others as individuals with whatever feelings and behavior they happen to have. It seems to be attacking the motivation to take the transgender route. 

Resigning, a UK transgender judge writes, "Rosa Parks’ choice of seat was political because of the colour of her skin. More prosaically, for me..."

"... I am now political every time I choose where to pee. Less prosaically, the judiciary by continuing to let me be a judge is now at risk of being political.”

From "UK’s only trans judge quits over risk of ‘politicising the judiciary'/Victoria McCloud said she had become a target and was forced to be political every time she chose ‘where to pee'" (London Times).

McCloud kept her trans identity out of the public eye for much of her time as a judge until her status was revealed by a national newspaper in 2016....

"Joe Biden’s dog Commander bit Secret Service agents 24 times."

The London Times reports.

[N]ewly released documents... only cover a nine-month period and members of the Secret Service, rather than all presidential staff, the true number of incidents could be much higher than the documents reveal. Previous reports had put the number of biting incidents at 11....

Sunrise — 6:30, 6:44.

"... Harvard interim president Alan M. Garber... said the cartoon depicted a hand labeled with a Star of David with a dollar sign in the middle holding nooses that were tied around the necks of an Arab man and a Black man."

"Screenshots of the cartoon appeared to show that the men were boxer and antiwar activist Muhammad Ali and former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. [The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the African American Resistance Organization] have since taken down the image and apologized...."

From "Harvard condemns ‘flagrantly antisemitic’ cartoon posted by student groups" (WaPo).

"What teenagers today are offered... is a hyperactive landscape of so-called aesthetics... including everything from the infamous cottagecore to, these days, prep."

"These are more like cultural atmospheres, performed mainly online, with names and looks and hashtags, an easy visual pablum.... They have much content but little context — a lot to look at but a very thin relationship to any 'real life' anything.... On one end, even a distinctly in-the-world subculture (like, say, grunge) can be reduced to a vibe packet of anodyne references (cigarettes, grimy things); on the other, a mere mood tone can be elevated to something offered as lifestyle (there are girls who enjoy the color red and a certain Euro effortlessness, and they are called Tomato Girls, while others who prefer white are called Vanilla Girls). If two dozen things on a Pinterest page feel as if they go together, chances are someone, even just as a lark or experiment, is calling it an aesthetic.... Kids are not failing by wanting to be cottagecore or meatcore or this new preppy. It’s the culture available to them that is failing.... Kids... need more, deserve more...."

Writes Mireille Silcoff, in "Teen Subcultures Are Fading. Pity the Poor Kids. Gorgeous, abundant visuals are just pale imitations of what young people used to have: an actual scene" (NYT)(free access link).

"The latest U.S. defense of Israel on the global stage came at the International Court of Justice in The Hague..."

"... where Richard C. Visek, the acting legal adviser at the U.S. State Department, urged a 15-judge panel not to call for Israel’s immediate withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory.... On Wednesday, Mr. Visek asked the court to uphold the 'established framework' for peace that he said U.N. bodies have agreed to — one that is contingent on a 'broader end to belligerence' against Israel — rather than heed calls by other nations for Israel’s 'unilateral and unconditional withdrawal' from occupied territories....  On Tuesday, South Africa forcefully condemned Israel’s policies against Palestinians, calling them 'a more extreme form of apartheid' the race-based system of laws that deprived Black South Africans for decades.... The United States has remained Israel’s staunchest defender internationally. But the Biden administration, under increasing pressure from parts of the Democratic Party, has also shown signs of impatience with Israel’s conduct of the war...."

The NYT reports.

"Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory."

Wrote Chief Justice Tom Parker, in a concurring opinion, quoted in "Alabama Rules Frozen Embryos Are Children, Raising Questions About Fertility Care/The ruling raises worrisome legal issues for would-be parents far beyond Alabama whose hopes for children may depend on in vitro fertilization" (NYT).

It has become standard medical protocol during in vitro fertilization to extract as many eggs as possible from a woman, then to fertilize them to create embryos before freezing them. Generally, only one embryo is transferred at a time into the uterus in order to maximize the chances of successful implantation and a full-term pregnancy.

“But what if we can’t freeze them?” [asked the head of a group that represents the interests of infertility patients]. “Will we hold people criminally liable because you can’t freeze a ‘person’? This opens up so many questions.”...

I'm seeing the idea that the economics of the infertility treatment business have been radically transformed (at least in Alabama). 

"Cats and dogs have an outsize carbon footprint, mostly because of their carnivorous diet."

"If the pet food industry, which mainly feeds dogs and cats, were a country, it would rank as the 60th-highest greenhouse gas emitter, equivalent to the Philippines. Rabbits, by contrast, leave a minimal pawprint. They eat small amounts of hay and otherwise discarded vegetables. Their waste can be used as fertilizer in gardens...."

From "Why you should consider bunnies as your next pet/'It’s like having a vegan cat'" (WaPo).

From the comments, from someone who said she had a rabbit as a pet:

Sunrise — 6:40, 6:52.

"All Washington does is divide us and talk about who’s to blame.... That’s not the country I know and love. I believe we need to come together and find common sense solutions to restore America."

Says Eric Hovde, quoted in "Eric Hovde launches Wisconsin Senate bid, handing GOP a boost" (The Hill).

Hovde seeks the Republican nomination for the Senate seat held by Democrat Tammy Baldwin.

Nate Silver poses "A simple challenge to the White House" to prove Biden's fitness as a candidate.

At Substack:

Over the course of the next several weeks, Biden should do four lengthy sitdown interviews with “non-friendly” sources....

For instance, Biden could pick... • A lengthy sitdown interview with the Washington bureaus of the New York Times or Washington Post. • An interview with 60 Minutes.... • An interview with some sort of center-right print or digital outlet... say the Wall Street Journal op-ed page.... • Wild card.... Go on Ezra Klein's podcast? Go on Rogan? Just kidding, I think. But Bernie Sanders did it....

This really isn't too much to ask.

Yeah, of course, it's not too much to ask, but I think we all know in our heart it is too much for him to do. It's hard to picture him even doing 2 of these things. Or one. 

And the timing is urgent because he and his inner circle have to make sure that he's really up for a second term and that this is the best option for Democrats.

Why is it suddenly "urgent"? It's a chronic problem and Democrats have been plodding slowly into it for over a year. I think at this point, the best path is to silently endure his collection of delegates. After that, Democrats have until the August convention to devise a nomination for the best candidate. Biden can gracefully withdraw at the best time. There's no reason to put him to the test and degrade or humiliate him. Treat him with respect and replace him at the optimal time. May I presume this is in the works? 

"A quiet, introspective bachelor, who wore a signet ring with the Latin word for 'caution,' he hated conflict..."

"... and had the courtly manners of his Iberian ancestry. But his virtuous life only made religious believers even more furious: How could a Godless man be morally irreproachable? Here, then, was a clash which we can still recognize today, between those who believe that moral behavior can only come from religious belief, and those who think it can emanate from reason...."

Writes Ian Buruma, in "The 17th-Century Heretic We Could Really Use Now" (NYT).

Reginald presents a dramatic reading of "Fast Car."

It's TikTok, so I will honor your sensibilities with this page break:

"I guess, as the famous saying goes, Democracy Dies in Discussion."

Says Jon Stewart, on "The Daily Show" last night, responding to critics who accused him of "bothsidesism" for aiming some of his humor at Biden:

The test is whether Stewart can stand up to these critics or whether he will take direction from them. He makes a joke of apologizing to them and offering them a fresh slab of the kind of comedy they demand — he goes after Tucker Carlson. Fine. That was well done. But I don't want Stewart cowed by his critics, and I hope as last night's show proceeded, he made fun of some Democrats too. I can't tell you whether he did or not, because they didn't put the whole show on YouTube as they did last week, and I don't currently have the Paramount streaming service. I was considering subscribing just to get this show. I still am. I want what's going to make Democrats get haughtily indignant and say "bothsidesism."

Sunrise — 6:33, 6:37, 6:39, 6:40, 6:45, 6:56.

"A lot of pro-Palestine stuff in Barcelona."

Chris texts me from Spain, with 4 photographs:

"[Democratic Governor Tony] Evers signed the bill despite pressure from powerful Democrats in the state to veto it."

"When the bill made its way through the legislature, Democratic lawmakers opposed it nearly uniformly, citing concerns... about possible future legal challenges to the legislative maps and general distrust of the Republican legislators who agreed to the law’s passage. 'If you believe that WI Republicans are planning to run on Gov. Evers’ maps in November, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you,' wrote Democratic state senator LaTonya Johnson on the social media site X. But it’s not clear exactly what those legal challenges would look like. 'I am extremely skeptical of this idea that there is a good basis for challenging the law, really on any grounds,' said Quinn Yeargain, a legal scholar who focuses on state constitutional law. 'I’m as much of a partisan Democrat and progressive as anybody else is, but being intellectually honest about what’s going on here is also important.'... The maps were heralded by anti-gerrymandering activists in Wisconsin as a win...."

From "Wisconsin adopts new legislative maps, giving Democrats chance to win state/Governor’s signature marks end of long fight over legislative lines and greatly reduces the Republican bias baked into current maps" (The Guardian).

How to be 14th best.

"Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall."

Wrote Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, who are responsible for the survey reported at "Poll Ranks Biden as 14th-Best President, With Trump Last/President Biden may owe his place in the top third to his predecessor: Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Donald J. Trump from the Oval Office" (NYT).

"I think that this is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about, because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior."

Said Governor Kathy Hochul, quoted in "Hochul tells NY businesses not to fear about Trump verdict: 'Nothing to worry about'" (The Hill).

What is the "extraordinary, unusual circumstance"? 

Being Donald Trump? If so, she's revealing that she believes the prosecutors went after the man, not the crime, an abhorrent abuse of power.

So, whatever she thinks, she can't mean to be saying that. What else is there?

There's the classic unbelievable assurance that if you don't break the law, you've got nothing to worry about. If you're "law-abiding and rule-following," then you're not in the category with Donald Trump.  Trump did something "extraordinary" and "unusual." Or did the prosecution do something "extraordinary" and "unusual"?

It's not reassuring.

ADDED: This post got me reading the Wikipedia article "Give me the man and I will give you the case against him":

"Game on, Don."

Game on, Don. pic.twitter.com/90vI9nK92B

— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) February 18, 2024

"Mr. Navalny was able to send hundreds of handwritten letters, thanks to the curious digitalization of the Russian prison system..."

"... a relic of a brief burst of liberal reform in the middle of Mr. Putin’s 24-year rule. Through a website, people could write to him for 40 cents a page and receive scans of his responses.... In a letter... Mr. Navalny explained that he preferred to be reading 10 books simultaneously and 'switch between them.'... Describing prison life... he recommended nine books on the subject, including a 1,012-page, three-volume set by the Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko. Mr. Navalny added in that letter that he had reread 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'.... the searing Alexander Solzhenitsyn novel about Stalin’s gulag.... 'Everyone usually thinks that I really need pathetic and heartbreaking words,' he wrote... 'But I really miss the daily grind — news about life, food, salaries, gossip'.... 'I really like your letters,' Mr. Navalny wrote in the last message that [his friend, the Russian photographer Evgeny Feldman, received. 'They’ve got everything I like to discuss: food, politics, elections, scandalous topics and ethnicity issues.'"

Writes Anton Troianovski, in "Inside Aleksei Navalny’s Final Months, in His Own Words/Trump. Indian food. Matthew Perry. And books, books, books. Excerpts from letters obtained by The Times show Mr. Navalny’s active mind, even amid brutal prison conditions" (NYT)(free access at that link).

Why is Matthew Perry in the headline? We're told that Navalny had never watched "Friends" — a show with plenty of food, gossip, and scandalous topics — but he'd read the actor's obituary in The Economist, "Matthew Perry changed the way America spoke" ("[I]n the audition it was he who had nailed it, reading the words in that unexpected way, 'hitting emphases that no one else had hit'; making everyone laugh. It was less that he, Matthew Perry, could play Chandler than that he was Chandler. He changed the part—and then the part changed him").

The NYT piece tells us that that Navalny's prison library had the classics — Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky or Chekhov — and “Who could’ve told me that Chekhov is the most depressing Russian writer?”

There's also some material here about Trump, but it's a little hard to understand. Perhaps it was enigmatic in the original. There's "Mr. Navalny confided that the electoral agenda of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump looked 'really scary.'" Not the man, the "electoral agenda"? And then he went on to say "Please name one current politician you admire."

Sunrise — 6:53, 7:00, 7:01.

Western view:

"More than two dozen sources tell CNN that [Kamala] Harris has been gathering information to help her penetrate what she sometimes refers to as the 'bubble'..."

"... of Biden campaign thinking, telling people she’s aiming to use that intelligence to push for changes in strategy and tactics that she hopes will put the ticket in better shape to win. Multiple leading Democrats, anxious about a campaign they fear might be stumbling past a point of no return, say their conversations with Harris have been a surprising and welcome change, after months of feeling sloughed off by the White House and Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware...."

CNN reports.

ADDED: This writing struck me as very strange, as if perhaps it was dictated by someone making a pitch:

"Women and people of color are not considered the readers of presidential history. And I think that’s related to this emphasis on masculinity."

Said Alexis Coe, author of the George Washington biography, “You Never Forget Your First,” quoted in "Why are historians obsessed with George Washington’s thighs?" (WaPo).

Ron Chernow (“Washington: A Life”) fixated on his “virile form,” particularly his “wide, flaring hips with muscular thighs.” Richard Brookhiser (“Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington”) remarked on his “well developed” thighs and quoted a bodybuilder who examined a Washington portrait and said, “Nice quads.” Joseph J. Ellis (“His Excellency: George Washington”) wrote that his “very strong thighs and legs ... allowed him to grip a horse’s flanks tightly and hold his seat in the saddle with uncommon ease.”... 

Why does Coe think women aren't interested in male body parts?! It seems to me that the focus on the physical body is especially interesting to women. I think biographies should tell us a lot about how people looked and what sort of physical powers and problems they had. I'd think male authors may tend to want to tell us about the physical attributes of the female characters, so it's good for them to make an effort to depict the masculinity of the men. 

By the way, since when are "wide, flaring hips" considered highly masculine?

In the New York Times, a reference to Trump's "false belief that he had actually won the election."

But the Jack Smith case against Trump requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did not believe that he had won, that he was lying when he said he had won. That's the opposite of a "false belief that he had actually won." Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm reading "How Two First Ladies Weathered a Most Unusual Presidential Transition/Jill Biden wanted to keep teaching. Melania Trump just wanted to go home..." (NYT):

In the days before the attack on the Capitol... Mrs. Trump had also started repeating a version of her husband’s false belief that he had actually won the election, telling her associates that “something bad” had happened....

"The gold 'Never Surrender High Top Sneaker' is $399 with gold laces, a red and white sole, and part of an American flag up at the top."

"But it’s also 'SUPER LIMITED' to 1,000 numbered pairs, and the website, which is apparently not officially affiliated with the Trump campaign, claims they are already sold out. (Don’t worry, some were quickly listed on Ebay for thousands of dollars per pair.) The laceless Trump athletic shoes are $199, have '45' on them, and come in red (T - Red Wave) or white (POTUS 45).... The Trump Sneakers site also presells $99 bottles of Trump Victory47 perfume... and Trump Victory47 cologne.... [J]ust in case anyone was thinking these limited edition items will only increase in value and are thus a worthy heirloom: 'Trump Sneakers & Fragrances are intended for individual enjoyment and as a collectible and not for investment purposes.'..."

From "Trump Wants You To Pay $400 To Walk in His Gold Shoes" (NY Magazine).

Whatever it takes... whatever scorn it brings...

Trump getting booed at Sneaker Con while trying to sell Trump Shoes for $399.00. pic.twitter.com/ieMjb7FCVp

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 17, 2024

Now, next time you are booed, you may remember to respond like Trump: "Wow, there's a lot of emotion."

Found object: The Metal Bird.

"Staying in bed after you wake up is appealing because we crave agency..."

"... said Eleanor McGlinchey, a sleep psychologist at Manhattan Therapy Collective.... Much like 'revenge bedtime procrastination' — the act of staying up too long to make up for the hours you spent working or caring for others during the day — lolling about in the morning is front-loading that 'me' time before responsibilities invade.... Quality time for yourself can slip into something more detrimental — such as a mindless hour or even longer on social media....  Generally speaking, though, lounging in bed can be time well-spent...."

From "How Long Is Too Long to Stay in Bed? Asking for a friend" (NYT).

I think the right question is not how long but how good — quality, not quantity. That's true about staying in bed and it's true about being on social media. Hence the "mindless" in front of "hour."

Googling, I see this article has also had the title "‘Bed Rotting’ and ‘Hurkle Durkle’: Can You Stay In Bed Too Long?" That's a more exciting headline, especially for those of us who respond to words.

And it looks as though this article, positing the sort of question you'd want answered by a sleep psychologist, was inspired by a TikTok trend...

.

"I'm coming to this super-late, but I just need to say that Paul Zrimsek won the internetz fir at least a week or two. Wow."

Said Beaneater, in a comment I just moderated through.

The post, from 3 days ago, was called "Unhappiness with air travel took a new turn when maggots rained down on passengers on a Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit...."

What had Paul Zrimsek said?

"Carrion items must be securely stowed."