At the Prairie Café...

...you can talk about whatever you want in the comments.

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That's a photo by Meade — taken today at 3:20 in the afternoon in the UW Biocore.

"Many basically ordinary activities conceal, or can conceal, vast amounts of effort. Packing, for me, has turned out to be like..."

"... staying fit, or being well read, or cooking a decent weeknight dinner for a family of four, in that it requires a surprising amount of consistent work over time. The effort isn’t just practical but intellectual. You’re a better packer, for instance, when you master the concept of a 'distinction without a difference'... there might be no appreciable difference between two distinctive-seeming garments.... Overpacking has the effect of deferring decisions, shifting them from your house to your hotel room. When you understand this, you become more motivated in your packing: it’s senseless to add not just to your physical load but to your mental one.... My new goal is to become as organized in life as I am on the road; my hope is that packing will end up being a kind of laboratory for the development of a more rational me...."

Writes Joshua Rothman, "Why Can’t You Pack a Bag? Our overstuffed suitcases burden us more than we realize" (The New Yorker).

Front-load your decisionmaking, and don't look back. You know, some people travel with just the clothes they wear and pack nothing at all!

A right jolly old elf.

President Biden makes a new friend during a visit to Children’s National Hospital. pic.twitter.com/37gC6Qpmbg

— The Recount (@therecount) December 20, 2024

Did you notice?

"[Quathisha] Epps recently made headlines as the NYPD’s top earner, pulling in a whopping $400,000 — including roughly $204,000 in overtime alone last year for her administrative job...."

"Epps, 51, worked for [Chief of Department Jeffrey] Maddrey as he moved up in the NYPD from Chief of Housing to Chief of Patrol.... The married Maddrey allegedly first demanded sex from her in his 13th-floor office at One Police Plaza. Maddrey was allegedly sitting at his desk with his uniform pants open and wearing a white undershirt while rubbing his chest when he first propositioned her, the unmarried mother of three said. 'He said he dreamed about f–king me in my a–,' Epps alleged. '“I said, ‘But Chief, you’re the Chief of Department.’ He rubbed his chest. . . . His work pants were open. He was like but 'I’m still a n—-r and you look good.'... Maddrey began being generous with overtime a couple years earlier, she said, when he was chief of patrol and she told him of financial problems.... 'Part of the overtime was to take care of his girlfriend,' she said. 'He would have me go apartment hunting with her.'..."

I'm reading The NY Post: "NYPD’s top cop Jeffrey Maddrey abruptly resigns after allegedly demanding underling perform sexual favors — including ‘kiss his penis’ — in exchange for overtime."

With overtime, Epps made $400,000 in a single year. If the story alleged is true, is Epps a victim, who deserves even more compensation for this sexual harrassment? Or is Epps responsible for participating in a scheme to steal from her employer?

"In September 1970, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, in a speech in Las Vegas, warned that drug use was threatening 'to sap our national strength'..."

"... and called out a number of pop songs, including the Beatles’ 'With a Little Help From My Friends' and the Byrds’ 'Eight Miles High,' as 'latent drug culture propaganda.' Within a year, under the Nixon administration, the Federal Communications Commission warned broadcasters about playing songs with lyrics that might promote drug use. As a result, 'One Toke Over the Line' was banned by radio stations in Buffalo, Miami, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and New York. Brewer & Shipley, Mr. Brewer said, came to embrace the crackdown as 'a badge of honor.'"

From "Michael Brewer, Whose 'One Toke' Was a Big Hit, Is Dead at 80/The duo Brewer & Shipley reached the Top 10 in 1970 with 'One Toke Over the Line,' a ditty about marijuana that ran afoul of Nixon-era censors" (NYT).

Brewer lived to be 80 and that was half a century after he expressed this conception of how he wanted to die: "My last wish will be just one thing/Be smilin' when I die/I wanna be one toke over the line, sweet Jesus/One toke over the line..."

The singer was "sitting downtown in a railway station" and "just waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary." 

Even if the song originated from an exclamation about smoking marijuana, it seems that the substance of the song is religious. The metaphor of the train is seen in other songs, such as "People Get Ready (There's a train a-coming....") and "This Train (Is Bound for Glory)."

I wouldn't brush off "One Toke Over the Line" as a "ditty."

And by the way, screw Agnew. Back in 1970, young people easily opposed censorship. Who would have thought that in 50 years, the tables would be turned and the young would embrace it?

Afternoon in the lakeshore forest.

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"When the going got rough, I tried to imagine that I was one of those big inflatable toys of the cartoon figures Baby Huey or Casper the Friendly Ghost."

"You could knock them down and they always bounced right back up."

Wrote Bill Clinton, quoted in "In ‘Citizen,’ Bill Clinton gives his side of the story/The former president’s memoir aims to set the record straight, with varying results" (WaPo). 

I was inspired to work on an illustration (with Grok):

"Mr. Romney didn’t accomplish everything he had hoped. He says his biggest regret is failing to stabilize the national debt..."

"... which grew from $22.7 trillion when he took office to $36.1 trillion. He blames 'the scourge of partisan politics' and warned in his farewell address that 'our national credit card is almost maxed out, and America risks becoming debt poor.'"

From "'What would Mitt Romney do?' His fight is still worth waging. Mitt Romney took courageous stands on principle, but he also passed a lot into law" by The Editorial Board of The Washington Post.

He "passed a lot into law," but the debt, in his one term, spiked from $22.7 trillion to $36.1 trillion. Well, how sad, then, to lose him. And look what's coming, as seen in The Washington Post:

"What was the Lie of the Year?"

Meade asked me just now, referring to the annual designation that appears in PolitiFact.

I thought for a moment, then said: "Joe Biden is sharp as a tack."

Meade said he thought PolitiFact would pick "They're eating the pets."

Hearing that, I agreed. Because PolitiFact would want to go against Trump, not Biden. And because "They're eating the pets" was such an extravagant and wild statement. It was interesting to talk about the instant Trump said it. But "Joe Biden is sharp as a tack" was much more of a lie. Because it was believed. For a long time. And it was completely momentous. It prevented a normal primary process for the Democrats and left them, in the end, with a candidate who couldn't win. 

I looked it up. PolitiFact made its Lie of the Year announcement 3 days ago. We hadn't noticed. Here: "'They’re eating the pets'/Trump, Vance earn PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year for claims about Haitians."

PolitiFact, which for 16 years has issued a year-end lie of the year report, keenly understands that when emotions collide with facts, emotions often prevail. To wit: Trump increased his voter support in Clark County, Ohio, which includes Springfield, this year above what he garnered in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns....

Speaking of garnering... the brilliant song made from Trump's "pet" bit has garnered over 14 million views:

ADDED:

 

"A decade ago, cultural norms in elite American institutions took a sharply illiberal turn."

"Professors would get disciplined, journalists fired, ordinary people harassed by social-media mobs, over some decontextualized phrase or weaponized misunderstanding.... But... it isn’t happening any more.... The era lasted almost exactly 10 years.... The political precondition was the giddy atmosphere that followed Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection, which appeared... to reveal a rising cohort of young, socially liberal nonwhite voters whose influence would continue to grow indefinitely. The rapid progression of causes like gay marriage seemed to confirm a one-way ratchet of egalitarian social norms....

Writes Jonathan Chait, in "How Liberal America Came to Its Senses/The period of left-wing illiberalism that began about a decade ago seems to have drawn to a close. The final cause of death was the reelection of Donald Trump" (The Alantic).

I'm not agreeing with the tale Chait tells. In fact, I find some of it hilarious. I'm presenting it for critical discussion. So let's continue. How did America "come to its senses"? Chait writes:

"Quick story about govt. shutdowns and the theatrics behind them. One year when I was reporting at CBS News during a govt. shutdown..."

"... we were sincerely searching for real life impact. When we couldn't find any, *that* should have been part of the story. Instead, we kept trying to create the appearance of an impact. It wasn't really trying to be dishonest. It was, in my retrospective view, because the general editorial idea for the story was to show how bad the 'Republican' shutdown was for ordinary Americans, and the answer simply couldn't be that it wasn't.... [W]e were calling Ds and the Obama administration for ideas to report what was the real impact. Taking our cue, these officials fabricated impact that we could report. For example, they cordoned off outdoor public monuments in Washington DC. We knew and even discussed in the newsroom that this made no sense. These monuments weren't 'manned' to begin with. The only reason to cordon them off from the public was so that visiting tourists would see the 'impact' of the shutdowns and the news media would have something to take pictures of and interview people about...."

Tweets Sharyl Attkisson.

Sunrise — 7:29, 7:48.

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"Presidential staff formed a tight shell around Biden, 82, right after he took office amid the COVID-19 pandemic...."

"By spring 2021, meetings were being rescheduled to accommodate for his 'good days and bad days.'.... Once inside the room with the president, officials were instructed to make their briefings short and to the point. Private discussions with even some of his top cabinet picks... grew more infrequent.... [S]taffers removed negative reports from Biden’s stack of news for the day, misleading him about the public’s opinion of his job performance...."

From "White House aides hid Biden’s apparent mental decline from Day 1 of his presidency, explosive report reveals" (NY Post).

"You’re not actually finished until you do read poetry on the weekends for fun."

Someone says in response to someone who said "I vividly remember discovering Dylan’s whole catalogue in college and consequently falling entirely out of touch with everything else music-related for a solid year, I also grew my curls out and you best believe I was wearing scarves and dressing like someone who liked to read poetry on weekends for fun."

All of that was in an r/bobdylan discussion of this new clip of Timothée Chalamet, getting (too far?) into his impersonation of Bob Dylan:

Welcome to the Church of Bob, Timmy. 🙏🏻🎶❤️
pic.twitter.com/g7N7S9DfBk

— Melanie Young 🔧 (@FreewheelinMY) December 18, 2024

What poetry does Bob read?

Perhaps they are lying in wait.

That's my answer to Glenn Greenwald's question: "Is there a single Democrat in DC politics or media remotely acting as if a New Hitler will assume power in a month?"

Look around: There are the drones, the "bird flu"... these things are in the air... circling. Something will happen, I'm afraid. Be vigilant.

"The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress... Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk... think about it ..."

"... nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds)."

Tweets Rand Paul.

It's probably a terrible idea but it's funny to think about it.

"Fani Willis disqualified from Trump's Georgia election interference case."

 Axios reports.

"The fact of the matter is, if the entire community hadn’t stood up and taken action..."

"... there is a real good chance that we would just all be living with the northern giant hornet, even for years to come. It is a very difficult task to eradicate an insect once it has become well-established.”

Said Sven Spichiger, the pest program manager at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, quoted in "'Murder Hornet' Has Been Eradicated From the U.S., Officials Say The hornet was discovered in a corner of Washington State. Five years later, a massive mobilization has eliminated the invasive species, at least for now" (NYT).

Murder hornets were a public obsession in the year 2020 — the year of the covid pandemic and a hotly contended presidential election. I was skeptical, blogging, on May 3rd:

People are desperate to concern themselves with something other than coronavirus and Joe Biden's sexuality.

I think that's why this story has legs — disgusting spindly legs — "‘Murder Hornets’ in the U.S.: The Rush to Stop the Asian Giant Hornet/Sightings of the Asian giant hornet have prompted fears that the vicious insect could establish itself in the United States and devastate bee populations."

That's in the New York Times, where I would expect a little more care not to randomly give off whiffs of xenophobia. Why are they insisting on calling it the "Asian giant hornet"? They already had "murder hornet" and "giant hornet." Why go big with "Asian"? 

Dr. Looney said it was immediately clear that the state faced a serious problem, but with only two insects in hand and winter coming on, it was nearly impossible to determine how much the hornet had already made itself at home.

Must I worry about 2 insects simply because Dr. Looney — if that really is his name — finds the seriousness "immediately clear"?

That said, I am looking for more exciting articles that are not coronavirus or sex and Joe Biden.

What was the sex and Joe Biden topic? Had you remembered the murder hornets? Yesterday's ephemera. You remember covid, of course, but it's wearing thin. They're cuing up the next scary insect + disease. I see Gavin Newsom has declared an emergency — in California — over "bird flu." Which sounds like "bird flew." I guess that's why they usually say "avian flu." While you wait for whatever insects they've got cued up, you can watch the wonderful old movie "Killer Bees":

But seriously, congratulations to all the good people who swarmed together to conquer the murder hornets.

"I'm looking for famous quotes that express the idea that the person who controls X controls Y."

That's how I prompted Grok just now. I was inspired by something Kakistocracy wrote in the comments in last night's café:

It’s weird to think that Musk will end up having paid far less for the United States Government than he did for Twitter.* To be fair -- what he paid for twitter was kinda the down payment for the presidency. It was a package deal. He needed both.

Here are the quotes Grok fished up for me: 

• "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." This quote from George Orwell's "1984" emphasizes how control over information (history) leads to control over future outcomes.

• "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws." Attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild, this quote suggests that control over a nation's monetary system equates to control over its governance.

• "He who controls the media, controls the mind." This is a variation on a quote by Jim Morrison, highlighting how control over information dissemination (media) can shape public perception and behavior.

• "Control the money, you control countries. Control the food, you control the world." A quote often attributed to Henry Kissinger illustrates the power of controlling essential resources like finance and food to influence global or national control.

I'd like to have those 4 over to dinner at the same time. We could talk about controlling things. Who would control the conversation, hmmm? I say Orwell. 

Anyway, Grok and I — at my prompting — proceeded to talk about the ancient Archimedes quote "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." (It's different from those other 4 quotes, but not completely different.) And then I fed Kakistocracy's quote to Grok thusly: 

"They say that the film is based on my book. But the film has virtually nothing in it that’s from my book."

"There are hundreds of moments [in the film] that didn’t happen. The film is fiction."

Says Eric Wald, quoted in "For Bob Dylan’s biographer, 'A Complete Unknown' is a dream come true — even if it’s mostly fiction/Elijah Wald’s 'Dylan Goes Electric'inspired the new Timothée Chalamet-led Dylan biopic" (Forward).

Wald starts ticking off movie scenes that never happened in real life — Dylan arriving at Newport on a motorcycle, Van Ronk telling Dylan that Woody Guthrie is in the hospital... Joan Baez... being part of the Greenwich Village folk scene (no, Cambridge, she hated New York)....

“The example that keeps coming back to me, though,” Wald continues, “is the morning after the whole craziness goes down at Newport — with Dylan riding off on his motorcycle past the fairgrounds where Pete Seeger is helping put away the folding chairs. Dylan did not have his motorcycle at Newport and I don’t think Pete Seeger was out that morning putting away folding chairs.”...

That example says a lot about cinematic art. It's good to show specific, concrete things that carry a lot of meaning and evoke strong or delicate feelings. Wald says the movie is "poetically accurate." Yes, Bob with the motorcycle and Pete with the folding chairs replaces what in the book is extensive examination of Pete's devotion to communalism and Bob's individualism. A movie could just have Bob and Pete talking about these concepts and how they apply to events in their lives. That could work in live theater or even in a movie (as in my favorite movie, "My Dinner With Andre"), but movies are expected to be highly visual. If they're not, what was all the money for?

Dylan tweeted his approval of the movie, but he hadn't seen it yet. Wald says: "My sense is that he likes movies and he has never had any hesitation about fictionalizing his life." That sounds right.

Sunrise — 7:08.

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"Far from draining the swamp, Trump and his administration will soon be bathing in it."

"We need to reveal the populist Trump as a plutocrat. The hypocrisy will be there in the upcoming tax legislation and slashed regulations for the powerful — all paid for by the middle class.... By returning to our roots as the voice of the middle class, we can unite both moderates and progressives in a fight against the well-heeled and well-connected."

Writes Rahm Emanuel, in "The road back to power for Democrats/It begins with messengers and messages that meet the moment" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would take up TikTok's appeal challenging a federal law that could ban the popular social media app by next month."

NBC News reports.

The court acted just a day after TikTok filed its appeal and will hear oral arguments on Jan. 10 before issuing a decision on whether to put the law on hold. At issue is a bipartisan measure passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden that would go into effect on Jan. 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would require TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban. TikTok has challenged the law, saying it violates its free speech rights under the First Amendment....

By the way, Trump talked about TikTok at his press conference on Monday. Asked "How do you plan to stop the ban on TikTok next month?," he said:

"From the very first scenes, as played by Chalamet, this Dylan has no use for anything other than his own songs and his desperate, entirely internalized, need to keep making them."

"Everyone else... they’re all just obstacles that stand in his way. Chalamet’s Dylan is aloof, peevish and, frankly, kind of a jerk. Nearly everyone in his orbit suffers accordingly. The closer they try to get, the more Dylan vaporizes and wafts away. But this doesn’t happen because of fame or riches or drugs, like it would in most music biopics. It happens because of who Dylan is. He just doesn’t care. He lives his life and writes his music and manages his career like a man who knows everyone around him is trying to write a biopic about him."

Writes Will Leitch, in "Don’t think twice, Dylan fans. ‘A Complete Unknown’ is all right. The impossibility of ever truly understanding Bob Dylan is the movie’s central tension" (WaPo).

I wonder if Will Leitch is related to Donovan (Leitch). Just an idle thought. It's hard to see how it would matter. Anyway, are you planning to watch this movie? Bob Dylan recommended the movie. I blogged about that 13 days ago, here. He also recommended the book the movie is based on — "Dylan Goes Electric" (commission earned) — saying, "After you’ve seen the movie read the book." But the movie doesn't premiere until Christmas, so I went and read the book out of order. I do some of the things Bob tells me to do. Some of them. Not all of them. 

Here's something from the book that I happened to highlight:

"No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense!"

"Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State. They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea. 51st State!!!"

Writes Donald Trump on Truth Social.

Discussed here, at The Hill:

His joking comes after the president-elect announced last month that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on products imported into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico.... Trump said the move would exert pressure on the trading partners to better crack down on the movement of fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S. and fortify border security.... He has also jokingly called Trudeau the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada.”

ADDED: BBC asks: "Will Trudeau Resign? Four paths Trudeau can take as political crisis deepens."

"A traditionalist to his bones, Mr. Biden has opted for the grace and reticence he believes are befitting the departing president of a defeated party..."

"... even as the incoming president threatens to imprison opponents and tries to install conspiracy-minded acolytes in positions of power.... At this stage of Mr. Biden’s presidency... his public messaging is targeted and restrained. Once Washington’s most loquacious chatterbox, Mr. Biden these days barely engages with the reporters who follow him everywhere. He has held no news conferences and conducted no interviews with the traditional news media since the election, though he has done some podcasts. His only reply to shouted questions from journalists during his entire Africa trip added up to 14 words. In South America, it was just a single word. As a result, Mr. Biden has not once publicly addressed his much-criticized decision to pardon his son since the written statement he released, nor has he discussed his consideration of blanket pardons for adversaries of Mr. Trump to protect them from his promised campaign of 'retribution' once he takes office...."

From "A Weary Biden Heads for the Exit/Still stinging from the election, President Biden is pushing for his final priorities but has absented himself from the national conversation about Donald Trump after warning repeatedly that he was a threat to American democracy" (NYT).

"It’s not often that my work gets a killer five-star review from an actual killer...."

"In my 35 years as a filmmaker, have I said or done anything that has implied I condone murder?... Throughout my adult life, I have repeatedly stated that I’m a pacifist. In fact, I have never struck another human in my life. Not even on the playground...."

Writes Michael Moore, in "A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies/I hereby give you my Oscar-nominated Documentary on the Killer Health Insurance companies like United HealthCare —SICKO — for FREE… and let’s end and replace this so-called 'health care system' NOW" (MichaelMoore.com).

In the United States, we have a whopping 1.4 million people employed with the job of DENYING HEALTH CARE, vs only 1 million doctors in the entire country! That’s all you need to know about America. We pay more people to deny care than to give it....

"Going to a party and thinking about what others are thinking about you is a pretty surefire way to have a terrible time."

"It’s such a reliable way to feel terrible that social psychologists in the ’70s and ’80s used to have people sit in front of a mirror and think about themselves when they wanted to study how negative moods affect behavior."

Said Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science, quoted in "How to Get a Party Buzz Even When You’re Not Drinking/These tips for sober socializing may not have you dancing on tables, but they’ll help you have plenty of fun" (NYT).

Thinking about yourself while looking in a mirror is a pretty distorted form of thinking about yourself. And I'm not even sure what "they" means in "they wanted to study." Is it the "people" or the social psychologists? When I first read that, I thought the subjects — the "people" — were receiving therapy and being taught that they look worse when they're thinking about themselves. So quit focusing on yourself and you will do better in social settings. But then I saw "social" before "psychologists" and realized this isn't individual therapy. The "people" were subjects of a study, and they were looking in the mirror... why? To ensure that they were thinking about themselves? Or was it to produce "negative moods"? Doesn't seem like a well-designed study!

Anyway, do you go to parties and think about what other people are thinking about you? Are there any mirrors around? Are you able to dance without drinking?

ADDED: I'm having a very interesting discussion with Grok about mirrors. At this point, it's pretty much written a complete book for me. I'll just show you the cover:

Sunrise — 7:08, 7:18, 7:36.

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The intensely visual and emotional Trumpian view of the landscape of war.

From the transcript of yesterday's press conference:

We're trying to get the war stopped, that horrible war that's going on in Ukraine with Russia, Ukraine. We've got a little progress. It's a tough one. It's a nasty one. It's nasty. People are being killed at levels that nobody's ever seen. It's very level fields. And the only thing that stops a bullet is a body, a human body. And the number of soldiers that are being killed on both sides is astronomical. I've never seen anything like that. And rapidly. I get reports every week and it's not even… It's like just… They're going down. Nobody's seen anything like it. It's a very flat surface, a very flat land. That's why it's great farming land. It's the breadbasket for the world actually. But it's very flat and there's nothing to stop a bullet but a body.

"Former Representative Liz Cheney colluded with 'star witness' Cassidy Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge."

"Former Representative Liz Cheney should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering based on the new information about her communication. Cassidy Hutchinson’s most outrageous claims lacked any evidence, and the Select Committee had knowledge that her claims were false when they publicly promoted her. President Trump did not attack his Secret Service Detail at any time on January 6. President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6. Cassidy Hutchinson falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for President Trump on January 6. Representative Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson baselessly attempted to disbar Hutchinson’s former attorney...."

From "Chairman Loudermilk Releases Second January 6, 2021 Report" released this morning.

Is it too soon to add my "Biden pardons" tag?

"Trump files suit against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and Des Moines Register.... Selzer published a poll days before the election..."

"... that said Kamala Harris was ahead by 3 percentage points. Trump ultimately won the state by 13 percentage points."

NBC News reports.

The suit, filed Monday night in Polk County, Iowa, says it seeks “accountability for brazen election interference” over a Nov. 2 poll that showed Kamala Harris up 3 percentage points in Iowa. Trump ultimately won the state by double digits, a difference that his lawyers argue in the suit constitutes “election-interfering fiction.” The president-elect is making the claim under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deceptive advertising....

Well, it's not just advertising. It covers "advertisement, sale, or lease of consumer merchandise, or the solicitation of contributions for charitable purposes." But still, it's hard to see how that could cover deceptions in the form of political polls — however dishonest — published — however corruptly — in the news portion of a newspaper. I'm not looking at the complaint, however. I understand the outrage, and maybe there oughta be a law, but how can it be the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act? Who was to be bamboozled out of anything? The Trump campaign? (That is: Come waste time and money in Iowa and stay out of those blue-wall states that will actually determine the election.)

"'Hookahs and music were banned from the beginning, said Yahia Naeme, the owner of the cafe..."

"... who said the ban had lost him business because many people used to come to his cafe specifically to smoke hookahs. 'If we can’t offer it, they’ll get bored and go elsewhere,' he said. Other cafes in Idlib have skirted the law by offering hookahs in speakeasy-type environments behind closed doors. But Mr. Naeme did not want to risk running afoul of the area’s rulers...."

From "Cafes Can’t Play Music, but the Water Taps Work: Life Under Syria’s Rebels/The Islamists who now lead Syria have ruled the city of Idlib for years. Residents say they imposed some strict laws, but also heeded some complaints and improved public services" (NYT).

"As someone who practiced press law for more than twenty years, and served as a senior executive of news organizations for just as long, I was shocked by the decision of ABC News last week..."

"... to pay $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s libel case over George Stephanopoulos’s This Week broadcast in March. The shock came, and still lingers, because I—and every experienced press lawyer not involved in the case with whom I have discussed it—considered the case one in which ABC was likely to eventually prevail. The decision to settle has been greeted by a lot of commentary, but almost no reporting of new facts. Understandably, that’s generated a good deal of hand-wringing about corporations 'bending a knee' or gloating about the humbling of legacy media or an arrogant press getting its comeuppance. But such speculation does little to explain what happened...."

Writes Richard J. Tofel, in "Questions ABC News Should Answer Following the $16 Million Trump Settlement/The decision to cave and apologize has unnerved American journalists. The network owes them an explanation" (Columbia Journalism Review).

"In the manifesto, called 'War Against Humanity,' the author writes that they have 'grown to hate people, and society' and calls their parents 'scum.'"

"The author also writes that they acquired weapons 'by lies and manipulation, and my father's stupidity' and describes wanting to die by suicide, but feeling like carrying out a shooting was 'better for evolution rather than just one stupid boring suicide.'"

Writes Newsweek, in "Natalie Rupnow's Reported Manifesto: What We Know" (about the school shooting that took place in my city yesterday).

The use of the word "scum" in a manifesto makes me think of "SCUM Manifesto," a 1967 feminist document. I discussed it back in 2017, when Facebook was banning some women who wrote about men as "scum." The "SCUM Manifesto" begins: "'Life' in this 'society' being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of 'society' being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."

And yet, this new manifesto — what I'm seeing of it, anyway — uses the language of gender neutrality: "Humanity... people... society... parents." There is, however, "father." I see that Newsweek is using they/them pronouns for the killer.

Newsweek also reports President Joe Biden's hasty response: "We need Congress to act. Now. From Newtown to Uvalde, Parkland to Madison.... Congress must pass commonsense gun safety laws: Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines...."

But when he pardoned his son Hunter for violating existing gun laws, Joe Biden attacked the prosecution as unfair and biased. One might have thought he'd refrain from calling for more gun laws when he so recently and conspicuously treated a gun law as not justifying enforcement. And yet didn't we all expect it — expect that next time there's a school shooting, Joe would indignantly cry out for more gun laws? #hypocrisy

Sunrise — 7:13, 7:20.

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Trump reveals something of what he knows/thinks about the drones (but declines to talk about whether he's received an intelligence briefing).

From a long press conference today: "The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason they don't want to comment, and I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy they'd blast it out. Even if they were late, they'd blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason they don't want to tell the people, and they should, because the people are really — I mean they happen to be over Bedminster... they're very they're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster. I've decided to cancel my trip."

He's asked, "Have you received an intelligence briefing on the drones?" and, unsurprisingly, he says, "I don't want to comment on that." But I think he has...

"When the topic turned to vaccines, the discussion was not about banning the product...."

"Kennedy spoke about the need for better study of the vaccine dosing schedule for newborns and the rise in chronic disease, while also rattling off statistics about the increase in autism rates despite multiple studies that have shown no link between vaccines and the disorder and World Health Organization estimates that immunizations have saved 154 million lives.... Here Trump redirected the conversation... while backing up Kennedy’s desire for more research.... He suggested to the drug company executives that they had nothing to fear from further investigation of the causes of autism, saying Kennedy could help put to rest vaccine hesitancy if no connection was found. The aftermath of the dinner, which ended by all accounts with surprising warmth on all sides, has become the stuff of mini-legend in the week that has followed. Trump called it 'a little unusual' in a recent NBC News interview. 'At a point I thought, I can’t believe I am doing this,' another participant said, expressing a sentiment echoed by others."

That's The Washington Post admiring Donald Trump!

The article is "How Donald Trump broke the ice between RFK Jr. and drug company CEOs/The president-elect’s choice for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is meeting with senators in Washington this week" (free-access link).

Do I need a new tag? Something like "Trump the Great Uniter"? Wouldn't it be funny... I mean, wouldn't it be nice if the old press template — Trump the Divider — failed? And who doesn't want it to fail?! Who doesn't want good things to happen?

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appears — one night only — in a performance of the Broadway show "& Juliet."

Nicely done!

"And and when I talk to people close to President-elect Trump and people who work for him, people on the outside — allies — they already see this as a resounding success."

"You know, they will say, look, who knows, maybe more accusations will come out against Pete Hegseth. Maybe we end up losing four senators and he goes down. But even if that happens, they see this as a cautionary tale for Republicans. They are putting Republicans on notice that they're not going to tolerate dissent. They're not going to tolerate opposition to Donald Trump during his return to Washington. And by making such a fight of this, by publicly forcing these senators to bend the knee, they are creating a template for what we're likely to see next year. As Trump tries to pass legislation, as he inevitably does controversial things that will make some senators squeamish, the Trump team is sending out the message. Now, there will be a very steep cost if you go against Donald Trump."

Said Jonathan Swan at the end of today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue." 

The episode concentrates on the effort to win support from Senator Joni Ernst. You can listen to that. I won't summarize. I am blogging this because I want to say that when I heard the part quoted above, I thought: Sounds like "Master of the Senate." 

Makes me want to reread Robert A. Caro's great book about LBJ. (Commission earned.) 

I hope Trump gets his Robert A. Caro some day. 

"Pilloried by Democrats during his 2012 run, Romney has emerged as a strong voice for a bygone kind of politics."

Said Jake Tapper, introducing Mitt Romney on "State of the Union" yesterday.

Romney gave a long interview, and maybe you saw a clip of it, but I want to do my own edit:

ROMNEY: Donald Trump won. He won overwhelmingly. He said what he was going to do, and that's what he's doing. I mean, people are saying, oh, I don't like this appointment or this policy that he's talking about. But those are the things he said he was going to do when he ran. So you can't complain about someone who does what he said he was going to do. And I agree with him on a lot of policy fronts. I disagree with him on some things. But it's like, OK, give him a chance to do what he said he's going to do and see how it works out.... 

TAPPER:  Are you worried at all about being a target for retribution, you or members of your family?

ROMNEY: No, actually, I have been pretty clean throughout my life. I'm not particularly worried about criminal investigations.

"Nicola Guess is a dietitian and researcher at the University of Oxford. She also runs a private clinic and has worked as a consultant for food companies, including Beyond Meat."

I'm reading the fine print at the bottom of the New York Times article, "Why Ultraprocessed Foods Aren’t Always Bad," by Nicola Guess. 

The problem is that the category of ultraprocessed foods, which makes up about 60 percent of the American diet by some estimates, is so broad that it borders on useless. It lumps store-bought whole-grain bread and hummus in with cookies, potato chips and soda. While many ultraprocessed foods are associated with poor health, others, like breakfast cereals and yogurt, aren’t.

Processing can also create products suitable for people with food intolerances or ones that have a lower environmental footprint. (Full disclosure: I have consulted for food companies that I feel make beneficial products, including Beyond Meat, which makes ultraprocessed meat alternatives that I believe are better for the planet.)...

So, there is also disclosure in the body of the text of the article.

I love the author's name, Nicola Guess. I have to guess about the usefulness of any of the assertions here.

Sunrise — 7:12, 7:09.

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"Holding space."

 Perhaps you're noticing this today:

Margaret Cho: "I'm holding space for that CEO shooter, the abs, and that body"

The American left's creepy fascination with Luigi Mangione continuespic.twitter.com/CJbFoys6iN

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) December 15, 2024

That's Margaret Cho: "I'm holding space for... those eyebrows, that body, the abs."

She's being funny... and inappropriate, and I'm not going to say anything more about how bad it is to drool over an alleged murderer. I want to discuss the phrase "holding space," which gained traction a week ago with this promotional interview for the movie "Wicked":

"People are taking the lyrics of 'Defying Gravity' and really holding space with that and feeling power in that."

I see there's a Wikipedia article, "Holding space":

"Holding space" is a psychology concept meaning towards creating a safe space for someone or something by being present for them, physically, emotionally and mentally without judgement.

"Some historians who follow the presidency say Biden has always shown flashes of anger when he feels underestimated."

"While they are far more fleeting than Trump’s brandishing of grievances, they have at times been unmistakable. 'There has always been this issue of resentment with Biden. He resented [former president Barack] Obama and crew for supplanting him in 2008 and for telling him not to run in [2016], and he has many other resentments,' said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian who recently published a book on the relationship between presidents and CEOs. 'But can you imagine how resentful he is of the shifting narratives and the way he’s been pushed aside and manipulated and not treated fairly. So yeah, I can see him being resentful.'"

From "Biden touts his legacy, but frustration seeps through/The president is observing the traditions of a peaceful transfer of power, but his regrets and misgivings are evident" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Lots to talk about there, but I want to focus on "brandishing" — Trump’s brandishing of grievances. This is an article about Biden, his resentfulness, but Trump must be inserted, and he must be worse. Biden has  fleeting flashes of well-founded anger, but Trump has grievances, and he brandishes them. So Biden briefly displays resentment but Trump waves his resentment around like a weapon. 

Just yesterday, I was talking about the journalistic deployment of the word "brandish." Discussing a NYT article — "In Display of Fealty, Tech Industry Curries Favor With Trump/It was a week of frenzied activity as Silicon Valley billionaires and their companies brandished checks and compliments for President-elect Trump"  — I wrote:

"Last night, the runways at Stewart Airfield were shut down for approximately one hour due to drone activity in the airspace. This has gone too far."

A statement from New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

In mid-November, I directed the New York State Intelligence Center to actively investigate drone sightings and coordinate with federal law enforcement to address this issue, and those efforts are ongoing. But in order to allow state law enforcement to work on this issue, I am now calling on Congress to pass the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act.... Until those powers are granted to state and local officials, the Biden Administration must step in by directing additional federal law enforcement to New York and the surrounding region to ensure the safety of our critical infrastructure and our people.

"[T]he idea that today’s vaccines are overtaxing children’s immune systems is fundamentally flawed, experts said."

"Vaccines today are cleaner and more efficient, and they contain far fewer stimulants to the immune system — by orders of magnitude — than they did decades ago. What’s more, the immune reactions produced by vaccines are 'minuscule' compared with those that children experience on a daily basis, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatrician at Stanford University who advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines. Children harbor trillions of bacteria, more than the number of their own cells, and encounter pathogens everywhere — from caregivers and playmates; in kitchens, bathrooms and playgrounds; on toys, towels and sponges. 'That’s just the normal course of growing up, is to have fevers and develop immunity to all of the organisms that are in the environment around you,' Dr. Maldonado said. 'We are built to withstand that.'..."

From "Are Childhood Vaccines ‘Overloading’ the Immune System? No. Vaccines today are more efficient and contain far fewer stimulants to the immune system than some used decades ago" (NYT).

"In most states, children must be vaccinated against about a dozen diseases, a schedule that typically adds up to about 17 doses, administered before they begin kindergarten... Each of the shots contains about 10 antigens. Older vaccines packed a much bigger punch, having up to 300 times as many...."