Sunrise — 6:08, 6:27, 6:34, 6:39, 6:40.

"South Korea’s birth rate is the lowest on the planet, at 0.7 per woman. The population officially began shrinking four years ago..."

"... and is projected to halve by 2100.... President Yoon Suk-yeol has described the population decline as a 'national emergency.' He and his wife Kim Keon-Hee are dog owners but do not have children. Experts say this reflects a broader societal shift, with pets filling emotional needs among a cohort of young people who are increasingly individualistic.... The shift in attitudes towards dogs in South Korea is perhaps most starkly illustrated by the fact that it only recently banned the consumption of dog meat.... Dog meat stew, known locally as boshintang, is eaten mainly by older Koreans in the summer.... The practice, often defended as cultural tradition, has faced growing opposition from... from younger Koreans who increasingly view dogs as companions rather than livestock...."

From "Raise children? No, South Koreans just want to pamper their pups/In the country with the lowest birth rate in the world, young people cite financial constraints and intense working conditions as reasons to choose pets instead" (London Times).

"Mr. Musk, 53, has long cultivated a devil-may-care persona..."

"... traveling the world, hanging out with moguls, world leaders and celebrities, and smoking weed in public. But in private, he has increasingly barricaded himself behind a growing phalanx of armed bodyguards as he has become more wealthy, more famous and more outspoken — and as the threats against him have evolved.... His security team now operates like a mini-Secret Service, and he is guarded more like a head of state than a business executive, security experts said. Mr. Musk, who was once flanked by two bodyguards, travels with as many as 20 security professionals who show up to research escape routes or to clear a room before he enters.... He is rarely without bodyguards — even when he went to the bathroom at X, his social media company.... Mr. Musk once operated informally, leaving his keys in his car and walking away, and did not want bodyguards, people close to him said. But as his profile rose, Tesla’s board required him to take on personal security...."

From "Inside Elon Musk’s Mushrooming Security Apparatus/As threats to his personal safety have become graver, the world’s richest man has barricaded himself behind a phalanx of bodyguards that operates like a mini-Secret Service" (NYT).

"The Long Path is a 358-mile hiking trail that begins at the 175th Street subway station in Manhattan and runs to Thacher State Park, just south of the Adirondack Mountains."

" Conceived around 1930 by Vincent Schaefer, a chemist and meteorologist, and named after a line from a Walt Whitman poem, the Long Path initially had no fixed route and was essentially a sequence of waypoints that led toward the Adirondack High Peaks.... It often felt like I was the only human on the trail. Occasionally I encountered others in the mornings or evenings, though all of them lived nearby and were being towed by their dogs. I began to realize that nobody I encountered was aware of the Long Path’s existence, including several people whose homes sat mere feet from the trail. Despite being well marked (its route is indicated with a rectangular aqua blaze), it appears to be hidden in plain sight. Apparently the ubiquitous patches of paint adorning tree trunks, stones and telephone poles are only perceptible to those who navigate by them...."

Writes Casey Kelbaugh, in "Walking From Manhattan to the Catskills on the ‘Long Path’/Intrigued by a trail marker he spotted upstate, a photographer set out to follow a meandering — and little-known — hiking route north from New York City" (NYT)(free access link).

The Walt Whitman poem is "Song of the Open Road," which begins:

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Meade and Althouse do the sunrise at 6:29:00 and 6:29:03.

"Excuse me. It’s a performance; it’s not a recital. Respect the audience. Respect me."

Said the opera star, quoted in "A Soprano Who Despises Encores Interrupts Her Co-Star’s/Angela Gheorghiu drew criticism after she stormed onstage to stop a tenor’s encore during a performance of 'Tosca' in Seoul" (NYT).

Gheorghiu, 59, a diva of the old school known for her preternatural voice and strong-willed demeanor, faced an immediate backlash.... Her managers released a statement on Wednesday saying that she had been assured by the conductor, Jee Joong-bae, and the production team in Seoul that there would be no encores. She said she had declined a suggestion by Jee that she sing an encore “to maintain the integrity of the performance.”...

Gheorghiu saw the encore by Kim, who was singing the role of Cavaradossi, Tosca’s lover, as a “personal affront given her strong convictions on this matter,” the statement said....

She's right about encores. They interfere with the immersion in the theatrical narrative. But so do breaking character and storming off. Both are pretty amusing though, I would think. But how can the audience reengage with a love story between Cavaradossi and Tosca when Kim and Gheorghiu are in hot conflict? I don't know. Maybe that's amusing too.

What do you say — encores or no encores? At least it's obvious that there should be agreement on the subject before the performance starts... unless this whole thing is a publicity stunt. It got me interested in Gheorghiu. Was that the point?

ADDED: I like the quote in the post title, but in what language was it spoken? It's an Italian opera, and the performance was in South Korea. Gheorghiu was born in Romania.

"Eating the Cats ft. Donald Trump (Debate Remix)."

I saw this yesterday afternoon, so maybe you've seen it already:

Let's see more credit to the creator, The Kiffness, who appends this note about his motives: "Disclaimer: as a South African, I am non-partisan in my support for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the US elections. I just thought the clip of Trump was funny and I wanted to make it into a song that could make a difference in the lives of animals. Whatever your political offiliation [sic], dogs & cats unite us!"

And watch some other things from The Kiffness. They're not all about cats, but some are — like "Ha Hee" and "I Go Meow" and "The Kiffness X Alugalug Cat 2.0 (Please Go Away)."

Here's the Spotify playlist for The Kiffness.

"Like other immigrant groups, [Haitians] hear about opportunities by word of mouth.... In this case, they were drawn by the availability of well-paying jobs."

"And they also heard that the cost of living was pretty low in Springfield. So soon, more and more Haitians arrived. And they were very attractive to employers because they had authorization to legally work in the United States. And what they have is something called temporary protected status. It’s a designation given to people from countries in turmoil, like Haiti.... So a city that had a population just under 60,000, now possibly has 80,000.... By most accounts, Springfield benefits from this influx of Haitians. They have come to work. I heard... that Haitians are coming to work on time. They’re reliable. They’re drama-free. ... They’re sending their kids to schools, schools that actually had been losing students because the city had been shrinking. And they’re leasing homes and apartments.... [N]ewly refurbished homes are sprucing up the neighborhood. They have manicured gardens, and they look a lot more cheerful than blocks where homes are still boarded up...."

From "The Story Behind 'They’re Eating the Pets'/A false claim made by Donald Trump in the presidential debate has its origins in an Ohio town," yesterday's episode of the NYT "Daily." Transcript and audio at the link (which goes to Podscribe). I'm excerpting one aspect of the story — how a city in decline revived itself by attracting businesses, which had labor needs beyond what could be supplied by the residents of the city.

But please listen to the whole thing (or at least skim the transcript) to see how the NYT presents the entire complicated problem of Springfield, Ohio, the small city that fell into the meat grinder of the American presidential election.

Sunrise — 6:20, 6:28, 6:37, 6:38, 6:39.

"You can’t disfigure the Eiffel Tower by giving it a sense that isn’t its own."

Said Olivier Berthelot-Eiffel, great-great-great-grandson of Gustave Eiffel, quoted in "Eiffel’s descendants say Non to keeping Olympic rings on Eiffel Tower/The Paris mayor wants the Olympic logo to stay on the monument. Gustave Eiffel’s descendants say the tower shouldn’t be a permanent billboard" (WaPo).

The mayor, Ann Hidalgo, says it's a "very beautiful idea to combine the Eiffel Tower, a monument designed to be ephemeral for [the 1889 World’s Fair], with the Games, an ephemeral moment which will also have marked Paris and our country. I want the two to remain married."

It's a terrible idea to leave the Olympics logo on the Eiffel Tower! I'm not even a fan of the Eiffel Tower. I think it should have been taken down, as originally planned, after the 1889 World's Fair. It doesn't harmonize with the rest of the city. But people have fixated on the thing, so there it is, with its weird power. Don't change it now.

But I'd have sided with the "Artists against the Eiffel Tower," who said this in 1887 (Wikipedia):

"Everybody loves their kitty cat and lets it run around outside. It’s just one cat—how many birds can it kill?"

"Well, every year in the U.S. one billion songbirds are murdered by domestic and feral cats. It’s one of the leading causes of songbird decline in North America. But no one gives a shit because they love their own individual kitty cat."

Says a character in Jonathan Franzen's novel "Freedom" (commission earned).

Something to contemplate in the context of this week's foofaraw about non-native human beings snatching up kitty cats. True or false, I don't know.

But I want to examine the outrage. Why are the cats out where they can be caught? The cats are an invasive and predatory species, and the human beings — who style themselves victims when their cats go missing — are responsible for allowing them to invade the habitat of the native birds.

"Harris, characteristically, has made a lawyerly assessment of pros and cons. She and her advisers have queried whether, given the limited number of ATACMS available..."

"... they might be more useful striking Russian targets in occupied Crimea — especially given intelligence reports that Russia has pulled its aircraft that target Ukraine back to bases beyond the missiles’ 300-kilometer range. Another concern for the Harris team is whether the Russians might retaliate by giving long-range missiles to adversaries, such as the Houthis in Yemen, further threatening Red Sea shipping and perhaps Israel.... Lawyers have played a decisive role in national security policy — from Dean Acheson to Jake Sullivan. Harris would sustain that long line of lawyerly balancers and trimmers who weigh risks and benefits before they take action. She might turn a page in our domestic life, but not so much in foreign policy."

Writes David Ignatius, in "These people have seen Harris in the Situation Room. Here’s what they have to say. Harris is 'more hard-line than most people think,' says a retired four-star general who has briefed her many times" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Ignatius assumes we understand what "trimmers" are — "lawyerly balancers and trimmers." There are a lot of meanings to the word "trim," including distracting slang usages (see Urban Dictionary). But, relying on the OED, I've got to choose the nautical meaning: "To distribute the load of (a ship or boat) so that it floats on an even keel." There's also: "To adjust (the sails or yards) with reference to the direction of the wind and the course of the ship, so as to obtain the greatest advantage." But the load distribution metaphor is the one that has been used in politics. The OED has a separate entry for "trimmer," and meaning #5 is expressly political: 

How, indeed?

A headline pair on the front page of the NYT catches my eye.

"How a Naked Man on a Tropical Island Created Our Current Political Insanity" — The naked man catches my eye, but a quick glance identifies the naked man as Richard Hatch, winner of season 1 of "Survivor," and we know that "Survivor" led to "The Apprentice," Donald Trump's big lateral move into the nation's psyche:

Sunrise — 6:38, 6:39, 6:39, 6:40.

Photos ##1 and 3 by Althouse, photos ##2 and 4 by Meade.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"What counts as biking the world?"

"With oceans inconveniently filling much of the Earth’s surface, a true circumnavigation by bicycle is impossible. So rules were laid down by Guinness to determine what counts. Wilcox had to complete at least 18,000 miles, travel in the same direction and finish where she started. She also had to pass two points that are antipodal, or located on opposite sides of the Earth. For her, those were Madrid and Wellington. Planning it all was a tricky matter of logistics. The cycling press reported that Wilcox’s 108-day ride was expected to be ratified as breaking the record of 124 days set by Jenny Graham of Scotland in 2018. And it was often a long day in the saddle. 'In the end it was 12 hours riding, sleeping seven hours a night,' Wilcox said."

From "18,000 Miles Later, an American Woman Has Cycled the World/It took Lael Wilcox 108 days to circumnavigate the globe. Improbably, she said it was 'the most fun ride of my life.'" (NYT).

"Caro had long opposed an e-book version, worried that it would diminish the reading experience, but about a year ago, he was finally persuaded that it could would expand the book’s reach."

From "Robert Caro Reflects on 'The Power Broker' and Its Legacy at 50/Caro’s book on Robert Moses, a city planner who reshaped New York, is also a reflection on 'the dangers of unchecked power,' and remains more resonant and relevant than ever" (NYT).

The Kindle version of the book becomes available on September 16th. Here's the Amazon link (commission earned). There's an audio version too. But note that you can stream the audio at no extra cost — here — if you have a premium Spotify subscription.

From the NYT article:

"Former President Donald J. Trump declared on Thursday that he would not debate Vice President Kamala Harris again...."

"'Because we’ve done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate,' he said at the [Tucson] rally, counting his debate against President Biden in June as the first one...."

I'm reading "Election Live Updates: Trump Says He Won’t Do Another Debate as Harris Announces Cash Haul" (NYT).

Is he negotiating?

At the Moral Urgency Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

The photo — showing the University of Wisconsin's central campus at night — was taken by my son Chris.

And here's another Chris pic that has an animal theme (see the kittycat?):

Jon Bon Jovi talks a woman off a ledge.

"Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jon Bon Jovi and a video production assistant persuaded a woman standing on the ledge of a pedestrian bridge in Nashville to come back over the railing to safety."

"[Jackson] Browne had approved [Wes] Anderson's use of 'These Days,' but had forgotten about it completely by the time he bought a ticket..."

"... to see it at his local theater. 'When the scene started and the song came on, I thought, "Wow, I used to play just like that,"' Browne said, laughing. 'Then I realized it was me. I think the song had already taken on a life of its own, but it was definitely amplified by that movie.'"

From "The Song That Connects Jackson Browne, Nico and Margot Tenenbaum/Browne wrote 'These Days' at 16. Now 75, he and some famous admirers reflect on his unexpected mainstay: 'If a song is worth anything, it’s about the life of the listener.'" (NYT).

Here's that scene from "The Royal Tenenbaums":

 

The song, written when Browne was 16, seems to be from the point of view of someone who's lived through many phases of life. It ends: "Please don’t confront me with my failures/I had not forgotten them."

The article quotes Jimmie Fadden, "a co-founder of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band — which Browne briefly joined": "I don’t know what his failures were at that time — maybe it was his report card, or school credits or the authorities at Sunny Hills coming down hard on him. All these years later, it’s a perfect song for any of us in our 70s.”

"How did members of Venezuelan gangs suddenly find themselves in suburban Colorado?"

"To answer this, we have conducted an exclusive investigation, which leads to a troubling conclusion: the Biden administration, in partnership with Denver authorities and publicly subsidized NGOs, provided the funding and logistics to place a large number of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora, creating a magnet for crime and gangs. And, worse, some of the nonprofits involved appear to be profiting handsomely from the situation."

From "Chaos in Aurora/How the federal government subsidized the migrant madness in suburban Colorado," by Christina Buttons and Christopher F. Rufo (City Journal).

"They never fired one person. They didn't fire anybody having to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban..."

"They should have fired all those generals, all those top people because that was one of the most incompetently handled situations anybody has ever seen. So when somebody does a bad job I fire them. And you take a guy like Esper. He was no good, I fired him. So he writes a book. Another one writes a book. Because with me they can write books. With nobody else can they. But they have done such a poor job. And they never fire anybody. Look at the economy. Look at the inflation. They didn't fire any of their economists. They have the same people. That's a good way not to have books written about you."

From Tuesday night's debate, that's Donald Trump, accepting the consequences of firing people. They write books and get back at you. In that structure of cause and effect, not firing people is a subtle form of censorship, and we the voters ought to notice the silence and think about what we are not hearing.

Esper is Mark Esper, who wrote "A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times." Wikipedia says:

"15 Countries where people eat dogs and cats."

From Taazakhabar News Bureau.

Highlights:

10. Canada: Dog meat is legally sold at restaurants in Canada.... Food animals are “mammal or bird raised in captivity–whose meat or meat or by-products were for human consumption.” So to obtain a license you have to prove that the dogs were raised explicitly for food and not keep as pets....

12. Switzerland: A small percentage of Swiss population secretly eats cats, dogs, and horses. Eating cat and dog meat is part of Christmas celebrations. While there are no commercial slaughterhouses for cats and dogs, farmers kill the animals themselves.... Swiss cantons of Appenzell and St. Gallen have a tradition of eating dog meat, preserving it as sausages, as well as using it for medicinal purposes.

"Remember: No eatin' dogs and cats!"

NEW: Full exchange of the incident leading up to Joe Biden putting on a Trump 2024 hat.

Biden: "Sure, I'll autograph [a hat]."

Man: "You remember your name?"

Biden: "I don't remember my name... I'm slow."

Man: "You're an old fart."

Biden: "Yeah, I'm an old guy... You would… pic.twitter.com/yQcCXmtzIZ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 12, 2024

Sunrise — 6:23, 6:44.

"Today she enjoys a bit of social engagement, but not too much. In one sense she is a loner, taking early morning walks...."

"A Europhile who writes, paints and takes pictures as well as making records, [Patti] Smith produces the kind of cerebral work the art world gobbles up.... Her body is a wiry, charged thing that appears to take its heat from the crowd and what she describes as the 'unconditional energy' of the young. More young people flock to see her every year.... This month she will perform to a sell-out crowd at St Paul’s Cathedral. When she comes off stage she doesn’t want to talk to people because she is likely to be rude — and these days she doesn’t like being rude. Smith told Bob Dylan that poetry sucked when she first met him in her late twenties. That tale is true; others aren’t. 'I’ve read the same stories repeated and expanded,' she says. 'The guy from Kiss said I slapped him across the face. I never did!'"

From "Patti Smith at 77: ‘I’m not a 21st-century person’/The punk priestess on her Seventies heyday, US politics — and why she’s happily reconciled with the daughter she gave up for adoption at 19" (London Times).

The quote in the headlines appears in this context: "I’m not a nationalistic person, I’m not even a 21st-century person. I grew up in the Sixties when we all listened to the same music and those who had any goodness in them were all for civil rights. We all wanted to end the war in Vietnam."

"Video has emerged from North Korea showing handcuffed teenagers being publicly denounced for the crime of enjoying foreign films and music...."

"Clips broadcast on South Korean television show teenage girls with heads bowed in some kind of tribunal. One of them, whose name and school are identified on screen, stands weeping in front of a microphone as she makes her confession, before being roughly led away by uniformed soldiers.... In a second clip, a young soldier confesses to similar crimes. 'Using my mobile phone, I watched 15 American movies, 17 South Korean puppet movies and 127 videos and listened to about 160 puppet songs,' he says.... A voiceover comments: 'There is a phenomenon by which impure recordings are purchased, viewed, stored and distributed using mobile phones. In the process, even text messages are exchanged in the contaminated puppet dialect. We must consider the fight against this malignant tumour as a matter of life and death.'"

From "North Korean teens publicly denounced for listening to K-pop/Pyongyang’s fear of exposure to ‘malignant tumour’ of foreign films and music laid bare in leaked video of handcuffed and tearful suspects" (London Times).

"Maybe you, too, have an unreasonable fear that is leaching the color from your life."

"Maybe you remedy this through walking, meditation or therapy. I recommend picking a saint to help you. The 'saint' doesn’t have to be a literal, official Catholic one — they can be anyone who rejected a life of maximal self-interest in favor of radical service, someone whose commitment to the rigors and contradictions of doing good in this world can show you how to live in it. My saint is Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century soldier turned Carmelite friar. He had a gift for savoring dull chores, like peeling vegetables and washing pots, which he did for most of his time on Earth...."

Writes Jim O'Grady, in "You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Live Like a Saint/Set aside the notion of flawless miracle workers. Focus instead on their exuberance and compassion, inner balance and commitment to a meaningful vocation" (NYT)(free-access link).

Biden, Trump, Harris, Vance... side by side at the 9/11 memorial service this morning.

"Thinning of the cortex is not necessarily bad; some scientists frame the process as the brain rewiring itself as it matures..."

"... increasing its efficiency. But the process is known to accelerate in stressful conditions, and accelerated thinning is correlated with depression and anxiety. Scans taken in 2021, after shutdowns started to lift, showed that both boys and girls had experienced rapid cortical thinning during that period. But the effect was far more notable in girls, whose thinning had accelerated, on average, by 4.2 years ahead of what was expected; the thinning in boys’ brains had accelerated 1.4 years ahead of what was expected.... The difference between the genders 'is just as clear as night and day,' Dr. Kuhl said. 'In the girls, the effects were all over the brain — all the lobes, both hemispheres.'"

From "Teen Girls’ Brains Aged Rapidly During Pandemic, Study Finds/Neuroimaging found girls experienced cortical thinning far faster than boys did during the first year of Covid lockdowns" (NYT).

"When two fighters fight and one loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate. Or they ask for a fight. So in this case a debate."

"When a fighter loses, he says: "I want a rematch. I want a rematch." Always the losing person, the fighter, the debater, they always ask for a rematch."

Said Trump, quoted in "Will There Be Another Debate? Trump Isn’t Sure. The former president suggested immediately after the debate and in a call-in to Fox News on Wednesday morning that he was not inclined to agree to another" (NYT).

Immediately after the debate, Harris's campaign said, "Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?"

Being "ready" for a rematch isn't the exactly the same thing as demanding a rematch. I assume both sides are spinning the first debate by saying things about a possible second debate, and they are in the middle of negotiating the terms and generating new material to use to insult each other. 

"How should we create things?"

"One popular idea is that we ought to 'make' things. In books like Robert Pirsig’s 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' and Matthew Crawford’s 'Shop Class as Soulcraft,' we encounter the notion that there’s something special about making things yourself, to your own specifications, with a particular goal in mind and in a particular state of mind—a kind of elevated craftsmanship. 'Craftsmanship means dwelling on a task for a long time and going deeply into it, because you want to get it right,' Crawford writes. He’s thinking mainly about making tough, hefty things with your hands—furniture, engines, houses, and so on.... Eno has a different way of imagining creativity.... Demonstrating some of the software he uses for creating generative music, he shows how a few elements can be designed and then put into motion—a keyboard melody, for example, can be fed through a program that randomly skips some of its notes, so that the melody renders differently as it repeats.... The idea is that the music isn’t finished. It will continue growing without him.... Applying a little Eno to my writing can loosen it up, shifting it from the precise, controlled, responsible 'making' track onto the playful, surprising, impersonal 'growing' track...."

Writes Joshua Rothman in "How Should We Create Things? In a new documentary, the musician Brian Eno shows that playfulness can substitute for inspiration" (The New Yorker).

"Some faculty brought up the spectre of student evaluations, which has been cited as a prime mover behind grade inflation...."

"Online course listings enable faculty, students, and administrators to see which classes fill up the fastest and, by implication, which professors are perceived as benevolent and easygoing. A professor of sociology at a large public university told me that these (surprisingly public) pressures on faculty are symptomatic of a transactional model of higher education. 'Broadly speaking, there are students and administrators who treat higher education as a service industry: students are the customers, faculty are the service providers, admin are the managers,' he said.... Any faculty member who is tolerant of extensions and makeup tests—who, in other words, gives the customer what she asks for—will earn more rave reviews than a less indulgent colleague...."

From "Can Colleges Do Without Deadlines? Since covid, many professors have become more flexible about due dates. But some teachers believe that the way to address student anxiety is more deadlines, not fewer" by Jessica Winter (in The New Yorker).

"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there."

"And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far -- the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It's a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She's destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success. We'll end up being Venezuela on steroids."

From "Harris-Trump presidential debate transcript."

Let's say you're a person who really hates chaos. Which way to you go?

If I had musical skills, I'd concoct something using that line over and over: "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there."

Let's say you're a person who really loves cats. Where do you go? Cat ladies?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

Will the debate be balanced, sedate, and unimportant? Or is something exciting about to happen?

Let's watch together and talk about it here.

1. My son John is live-blogging at Facebook.

2. ...

Sunrise — 6:20, 6:36.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments... EXCEPT the big debate. I'll put up another post for the debate.

"Some scholars have been surprised by their findings about gender and how candidates translate to viewers."

"One experiment enlisted actors to re-create a Clinton-Trump debate — repeating lines, gestures and facial expressions but with the genders swapped. Audience members were asked about their views afterward.... 'That project was really shocking for me,' said Joe Salvatore, a New York University professor who co-led the experimental performance. He had thought that viewers would react more negatively to a female Trump and more positively to a male Clinton because of gender bias — for instance, an aversion to a confrontational woman. But plenty liked that the female Trump was 'strong' and 'concise' — and conversely took issue with how much the male Clinton was smiling."

From "Analysts say Trump faces risks heightened by gender when he debates Harris/Political analysts say there are particular risks for Donald Trump — heightened by gender — in coming across as a bully when he debates Kamala Harris" (WaPo).

I blogged about Salvatore's project back in 2017 — with video of the gender-reversed debate. What a revelation! Watch:

I think it's great that the audience appreciated a woman talking like Trump and didn't like the Hillary mannerisms in a man. And Kamala Harris has a lot of feminine style that I'm afraid comes across as subordinate: the laughing, the smiling, the whole-body shaking, the nodding of the head as if desperate for approval, the ever-changing voice. It doesn't show leadership ability, and we can see why Trump is getting mileage out of saying that world leaders will "walk all over her" and "She'll be like a play toy."

"Three major events have shaken up the social-media world in the past two weeks."

"First, French authorities detained Pavel Durov, the iconoclastic billionaire behind the online platform Telegram. Then, a judge suspended the microblogging service X in Brazil. Soon after, a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled that the mother of a 10-year-old child who died copying a TikTok self-asphyxiation video can sue the service, circumventing a blanket legal immunity the company has long claimed. While each of these events took place in a different country with its own laws, together they demonstrate a sudden shift in the balance of power between governments and technology companies.... Finding the right balance between user safety and free expression will not be easy. It will require investing in existing institutions like the Federal Trade Commission to strengthen their capacity to check digital authoritarianism, anti-competitive behavior and anti-consumer business models or features, and building new ones that lay out bright lines for transparency and accountability online...."

Writes Alexander B. Howard, the founder of Civic Texts, in "Has the Tide Turned for TikTok, Telegram and X?" (NYT).

"We have to overthrow the entrenched elites who are now ruining our country. So let's get Donald Trump elected...."

Bottom line: No matter what state you live in, VOTE TRUMP. A Trump victory is a Kennedy victory. pic.twitter.com/GBn2p2RLnX

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 10, 2024

Another year has passed in The Althouse Sunrise Project.

Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of my daily photographs of the sunrise. A few days were skipped for bad weather and once or twice I overslept, but the ritual practice is nearly every single day. I try to get good pictures, but many days are like other days and simply doing it is more important to me than getting a distinctive photograph. Still I rejoice on those days when it looks especially great, and I take this annual occasion to repost a few of the best.

Like this one, with the most unusual color, from May 21:

And this, from April 26, where white showed its worth as a sunrise color:

And just last week, on September 3, brown was a delicate delight:

"The candidate who will win the election is the candidate seen as the most able to bring about change, say strategists on both sides."

"A New York Times/Siena College poll found 61 percent of likely voters said they want major change from Biden. Democrats argue Harris inhabits an ethos of change simply by being a younger, fresher candidate, and her potential to become the first woman president. They hope Trump will look stale on the stage next to her."

Writes Amber Phillips, in "What Harris, Trump need to do to win Tuesday’s presidential debate" (WaPo).

Look for other efforts to diminish Trump by referring to his age. I'm also seeing this, from Peter Baker at the NYT: "As Debate Looms, Trump Is Now the One Facing Questions About Age and Capacity/With President Biden no longer in the race, former President Donald J. Trump would be the oldest person ever to serve in the Oval Office. But his rambling, sometimes incoherent public statements have stirred concern among voters."

My question about Harris as the change candidate: She just seized all the delegates Biden won in the primaries to get the nomination, which symbolized that she was the proper substitute for him. Doesn't that require her to run on his record and vow to stay the course and tell us not to change horses in midstream? I think the answer is "yes," and that explains the new focus on age. She is Biden II, the younger Biden.

But people want change, supposedly. It's a "change election." The idea seems to be to convince the people that the change from Biden is just someone younger (and, if you must, also a different color and gender).

"In MAGA world, the alleged pet-eating is already a matter of fact..."

"... and Republican elected officials, including Vance, are hurrying to join the clout rush, the scramble to get attention and likes and followers by treating it as a serious issue."

Writes Phillip Bump, in "The right-wing bubble says Trump will save your cat from immigrants/False claims and baseless ones are politically useful, so they rocket to the social media accounts of prominent right-wing people" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Did you notice it yesterday? "Seemingly out of the blue Monday morning, supporters of former president Donald Trump began posting myriad AI-generated images depicting the Republican presidential nominee as a savior. Not of the American Dream or of Christianity, mind you, the normal targets of such praise. Instead, Trump was shown protecting ducks and kitty cats."

Yeah, I was wondering what this — forwarded to me yesterday — was all about:

Systematically undercounting Trump support through the years.

"Tulsi Gabbard Is on Terror Watchlist?"

Asks Snopes, with "Research In Progress."

Here's what Tulsi said that set off the Snopes investigation: "Kamala says she believes in freedom, but I was put on a secret terror watch list after I publicly criticized her. No one will be safe from political retaliation under a Harris administration. I put my life on the line for this country. Now the government calls me a terror threat."

Kamala says she believes in freedom, but I was put on a secret terror watch list after I publicly criticized her. No one will be safe from political retaliation under a Harris administration. I put my life on the line for this country. Now the government calls me a terror threat. pic.twitter.com/3xjgjmrLhD

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) September 4, 2024

Sunrise — 6:33, 6:34, 6:35, 6:36.

Photos ##1, 2, and 4 are by me. Photo #3, of me, is by Meade.

"James Earl Jones, a stuttering farm child who became a voice of rolling thunder as one of America’s most versatile actors..."

"... in a stage, film and television career that plumbed race relations, Shakespeare’s rhapsodic tragedies and the faceless menace of Darth Vader, died on Monday at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y. He was 93.... From destitute days working in a diner and living in a $19-a-month cold-water flat, Mr. Jones climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords. He was abandoned as a child by his parents, raised by a racist grandmother and mute for years in his stutterer’s shame, but he learned to speak again with a herculean will.... Some theatergoers, aware of Mr. Jones’s childhood affliction, discerned occasional subtle hesitations in his delivery of lines. The pauses were deliberate, he said, a technique of self-restraint learned by stutterers to control involuntary repetitions. Far from detracting from his lucidity, the pauses usually added force to an emotional moment.... 'Because of my muteness,' he said in... a 1993 memoir... 'I approached language in a different way from most actors. I came at language standing on my head, turning words inside out in search of meaning, making a mess of it sometimes, but seeing truth from a very different viewpoint.'"

From "James Earl Jones, Actor Whose Voice Could Menace or Melt, Dies at 93/He gave life to characters like Darth Vader in 'Star Wars' and Mufasa in 'The Lion King,' and went on to collect Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys and an honorary Oscar" (NYT).

A fairy garden for Kamala.

"This is something people do around here. There's a name for it, I think, but I've forgotten what it is — if I ever knew" — I wrote, back in 2021. Commenters told me what it is: a "fairy garden."

Here's one that my son Chris found today:

Photo by Chris.

Fungus of the Day.

Photo by Meade.

"Ten generals and admirals are mobilizing to defend Vice President Kamala Harris from Republican attempts to tie her to the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan."

Axios reports.

That sounds wrong, but at least they are all retired.

What is the substance of the defense? "The group accused Trump of leaving Biden and Harris with no plans to execute a withdrawal and little time to do so."

"His father, a banker, intended for Arnold to be an accountant, which Arnold found preposterous."

"He couldn’t stand math. 'I was supposed to fulfill his desire and to be a successful capitalist,' he snorted. He was a 'hotheaded' teenager attracted to the religious fervor of the 1970s — like the Jesus movement, a youthful West Coast evangelicalism — and its intersections with social-justice movements. The way that the Shakers put their commitment to faith, pacifism and equality at the center of everything they did appealed to him. He soon began visiting Sabbathday Lake, the only active Shaker community accepting new members, after high school.... The self-abnegation required of this level of communal Christianity necessitated some internal rearranging.... Subordinating your own dreams, preferences and even personality to the interests of the group and the pursuit of Christlike virtue. Over and over, for the rest of your life. Brother Arnold nearly quit in his first year over an argument with an older sister who wrongly accused him of some minor, long-forgotten transgression. 'I’m just 21, living with people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. You can’t talk back to them. I had no redress, so I just had to take it. Helpless.' He smiled. 'I didn’t really think that that was right.' He appealed to Brother Ted, who told him that it didn’t matter if Arnold was right; he needed to get ahold of his wounded ego. Brother Arnold fumed while he worked, debating whether to leave. Eventually, he calmed down. Brother Ted was right. 'If you’re here, you’re supposed to be here as a vessel of love,' he told me. 'You’re not supposed to be here to be yourself. You’re supposed to be here to be better than yourself.'"

From "There Are Only Two Shakers Left. They’ve Still Got Utopia in Their Sights. Their numbers have dwindled, but the remaining members are imagining what comes next" (free-access link).

"In February 2023, the New York Times published an article titled, 'Kamala Harris Is Trying to Define Her Vice Presidency. Even Her Allies Are Tired of Waiting.'"

"The headline was generous, given what followed. 'The painful reality for Ms. Harris is that in private conversations over the last few months, dozens of Democrats in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and around the nation … said [Harris] had not risen to the challenge of proving herself as a future leader of the party, much less the country,' the New York Times reported. 'Even some Democrats whom her own advisers referred reporters to for supportive quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her.'... [T]he New York Times reported that 'a quiet panic' had 'set in among key Democrats about what would happen if President Biden opted not to run for a second term.' Harris made the situation even worse by retreating to 'a bunker' for about a year, the New York Times said, 'after her disastrous interview with Lester Holt of NBC News.'..."

Writes Byron York, in "Remember when Democrats (and everybody else) thought Kamala Harris was a bad vice president?" (Washington Examiner). Discussion of other articles at the link and the statement that "there were many more, all of which could be summarized by one, brief sentence: Kamala Harris made a mess of the vice presidency."

These days, the press have tried to boost Harris, but even though they seem to want to help her, she's avoiding them. As for the NYT, it's still musing about Harris's need to "define" herself. There's this, from "Harris Says She’s Ready for Debate as Poll Shows a Tight Race: Election Updates":

So, um, yeah, astrology.

"You know, um, so I'm a Libra my husband is a Libra, um, and it's so funny, he'll talk, Doug, he'll talk about the fact that that it's the Libra in us where we will sit on the couch in front of the TV with the switcher for like 45 minutes debating which Netflix show should we start streaming, and we weigh the pros and the cons of each, and then by the time we're done, we're ready to go to bed. Right. You missed your window. The window just shut, because we are just sitting there debating like, okay, well, on the one hand, do we want to see comedy or drama. We both love, you know, sci-fi, right, anyway, um, yeah astrology." 

The video seems to be from a podcast last April.

I think believing in astrology is the height of idiocy, but there's also inane, cutesy pretending to believe in astrology in pointless small talk. That's less stupid, but hardly reflective of leadership at the presidential level. 

Do you think Kamala Harris would, like Nancy Reagan, actually use astrology in conducting official business? 

Let's read "Ten World Leaders Who Leaned on Astrology for Guidance." Before you look, do you think you're going to admire these historical characters? Hint: First on the countdown from 10 to 1 is "Adolf Hitler's Underlings."

Elton John has "always been friendly towards" Donald Trump, because Donald Trump has always been a fan of his.

And he thought calling Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man” was "hilarious" and "brilliant":

Elton John on his reaction to Donald Trump calling Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man”: “I laughed, I thought that was brilliant... I’ve always been friendly toward him, and I thank him for his support. When he did that, I just thought it was hilarious.” https://t.co/QXV9VqAtuT pic.twitter.com/MNhsNzFwlR

— Variety (@Variety) September 7, 2024

Sunrise — 6:24, 6:25, 6:27, 6:33.

"The book’s word-to-photo ratio is extremely low.... You’ll go 15 pages with no captions at all, then get a bland sentence like 'Bidding farewell to Barack and Michelle Obama on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017.'"

"And none of the words are in Trump’s handwriting, unless you count the slogan 'NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER' on the full-page mug shot that opens the book..... There are six pictures of Trump raising his fist after the assassination attempt. I guess you could say this is another example of lazy design choices, but I’m listing it as a high because the image is undeniably iconic from any angle, and if I survived an assassination attempt, that would be the subject of all 359 pages of the book. Low: There are 15 pages on Trump golfing.... There are shots of Trump sitting in a golf cart, chatting with various golf pros, holding a map of his club in Scotland at his club in Scotland, and swinging a golf club from multiple angles. One page is a zoomed in photo of the back of Trump’s MAGA hat-clad head with the caption, 'Who is this Handsome man?'"

I'm reading "The High and Lows From Trump’s Lazy New Coffee Table Book/From glaring errors to debunked gossip, Save America is a dizzying semi-literary adventure" (NY Magazine).

You know, some people just want more pictures of Trump. I want more pictures of the people at Trump rallies, so let me give you one more from Meade's sojourn to Mosinee, Wisconsin:

This picture has been growing on me. The shadows, the elbow, the mushrooms, the long foot. 

"His ideas on what he called the 'politics of meaning' (his goal, he said, was 'to build a society based on love and connection') were briefly embraced by Hillary Clinton..."

"... the newly installed first lady. 'We need a new politics of meaning,' Mrs. Clinton said in a speech in Austin, Texas, in 1993. 'We need a new ethos of individual responsibility and caring. We need a new definition of civil society which answers the unanswerable questions posed by both the market forces and the governmental ones, as to how we can have a society that fills us up again and makes us feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.' Just how much impact his ideas ultimately had on Mrs. Clinton is unclear; confronted by skepticism over the vagueness of his philosophy — a Baltimore Sun columnist called it 'psychobabble' — she soon dropped references to it, at least in public.... 'Unintentionally hilarious Big Brotherism is, in fact, a hallmark of Lerner’s ideas for implementing the politics of meaning,' the journalist Michael Kelly wrote in a 1993 profile of Hillary Clinton in The New York Times Magazine, citing Rabbi Lerner’s proposal that the Department of Labor order 'every workplace' to create a 'mission statement.'"

From "Michael Lerner, 81, Is Dead; Founder of a Combative Jewish Magazine/His publication, Tikkun, was a leading voice for left-wing American Jews. His ideas about “the politics of meaning” were embraced by Hillary Clinton" (NYT).

"Parallels to a certain contemporary political figure whose need for the continual propping up of his ego (and his retributive acts to members of his circle who don’t oblige) are obvious."

"But APT doesn’t underline the similarities, choosing a more traditional approach. Perhaps this is a wise decision; perhaps it’s a missed opportunity. It’s hard to say."

Writes the Isthmus reviewer, Linda Falkenstein, in "Tell me you love me/Strong performances are at the heart of American Players Theatre’s King Lear.'"

We saw the play yesterday. Here's my pre-show photograph to record our attendance:

The play in my pre-show photograph yesterday — here — was "Constellations." Yes, I took the 1-hour drive west to Spring Green 2 days in a row. On Friday, I went with Meade, on Saturday, with my son Chris. Where was Meade when Chris and I were seeing "King Lear," which may or may not have stirred up thoughts of Donald Trump (or the old man who did, like Lear, step down, Joe Biden)?

Meade was taking a 2-hour drive north, to Mosinee, for a Trump rally. I don't think Trump displayed any need for propping up, contrary to Falkenstein's assertion (see post title).

Full video of Trump's Mosinee speech here. 

And here is some of Meade's documentation of his presence at what he made sound like a love fest:

ADDED: While I did not watch the play looking for parallels to Trump/Biden, the deep engagement in Shakespeare's tragedy that I sought was impaired by the frequent laughter from the audience. I found Falkenstein's review this morning because I had developed a suspicion that word had gone out that the play was deliberately staged to heighten the comedy and that audience members other than me were committed to providing the actors with support for this interpretation. I found no evidence for my hypothesis. But Falkenstein's review provides a basis for a new hypothesis: The laughers in the audience were thinking of Donald Trump, and, in that light, when they saw tragedy, they thought it was hilarious.

Let me just give one memorable example of the laughter. In Act IV, Scene 6, Gloucester and King Lear are reunited, and we have been witnessing both men going through immense suffering. The lines are:

GLOUCESTER O, let me kiss that hand!
LEAR Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.

The audience busted out laughing at "Let me wipe it first." The hell! What explains that?!

"A near majority of voters say Mr. Trump is 'not too far' to the left or right on the issues, while only around one-third say he’s 'too far to the right.'"

"Nearly half of voters, in contrast, say Ms. Harris is too far to the left; only 41 percent say she’s 'not too far either way.' This is one of Mr. Trump’s overlooked advantages. Yes, he’s outside of the political mainstream in many respects.... But he’s also taken many positions that would have been likelier to be held by a Democrat than a Republican a decade ago, like opposition to cutting entitlements, support for a cooperative relationship with Russia or opposition to free trade.... Only 40 percent of likely voters said Ms. Harris represented 'change,' while 55 percent said she represented 'more of the same.' Mr. Trump, in contrast, was seen as representing 'change' by 61 percent of voters, while only 34 percent said he was 'more of the same.'... When Ms. Harris entered the presidential race, she seemed like a candidate with a lot of potential liabilities. She took many unpopular positions in her 2019 presidential campaign, and she was tied to the Biden administration’s immigration policy as well. In August, it seemed she could glide past all of these issues by running as a 'generic' Democrat.... The risk, however, was that Ms. Harris was inevitably going to be defined, one way or another, and that her campaign was mostly forfeiting its opportunity to clearly define her in the eyes of the public. In this poll, the risks associated with this strategy are evident...."

Writes Nate Cohn in "New Poll Suggests Harris’s Support Has Stalled After a Euphoric August

Almost 30 percent of voters said they needed to learn more about her" (NYT). A new NYT poll has Trump 1 point ahead of Harris, "the first lead for Mr. Trump in a major nonpartisan national survey in about a month." And, by the way, "Why haven’t there been more polls?"

Cohn points to a few "positions that would have been likelier to be held by a Democrat than a Republican a decade ago," but we could easily add to that list: support for endless wars, opposition to freedom of speech, persecution of political enemies....