At The Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

Canada can't be the 51st state. It would need to be the 51st through 63rd state...

... Tom Green explains.

"I've always have loved good tunes. And my dad played them on his piano... My cousin Betty introduced me to 'My Funny Valentine.'"

"I loved sort of classic pieces that I would hear. I would love ‘Cheek to Cheek,' Fred Astaire, all these things. I just thought, these are classics.... Heaven, I'm in heaven.... So, I had a lot of information in my head of those tunes.... People have said to me, do you believe in magic? And I say, I have to 'cause of that song.... I think I'd loaded my computer so strongly with 'Cheek to Cheek,' 'Stardust,' 'When I Fall in Love,' with these beautiful songs, I'd heard all my childhood. I mean, I can still remember standing in the kitchen of Forthlin Road and hearing 'When I Fall in Love' by Nat King Cole as I was reaching for an HP bottle and thinking, my God, this is good.... So, you know, that's all I can think is that all of that data — to use modern terminology — had gone into my very sophisticated computer. The human brain, right? Had jumbled up, done all this sort of stuff. And somehow as the dream, it just, it tumbled out this song."

Said Paul McCartney, in the "Yesterday" episode of the "Life in Lyrics" podcast. 

I had to look up HP. My own "computer" is full of A1 and Heinz 57. HP is in the British mind. "HP Sauce is a British brown sauce... named after London's Houses of Parliament."

What sauce is splattered on your magical dreams?

"Remarkably, Trump’s margin of victory in Florida in 2024 was larger than Kamala Harris’s in New York."

"Such a result seemed unthinkable until it happened. In the seven prior presidential elections, the margin of victory in New York generally exceeded that in Florida by more than 20 percentage points.... In the more than 35 years since Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, no other presidential candidate of either party has won Florida by even half as much as Trump did in 2024....  The ribbon of interconnected states running through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa has held vital importance for American presidential elections for more than 150 years.... In presidential races spanning 1996 through 2012, Republican candidates won the respective contests in those five key states just 12 percent of the time (three wins, 22 losses). In the subsequent three elections, Trump won the battles in those states 80 percent of the time (12 wins, 3 losses). Trump’s success in Ohio and Iowa is particularly remarkable.... Trump also gained ground in uncompetitive states, such as New York, New Jersey, and West Virginia...."

Writes Jeffrey H. Anderson, in "How Trump Remade the Electoral Map/The president-elect has shaken up state-level results across his three campaigns" (City Journal).

"Their suggestion was slovenly. Also slipshod, slapdash, shoddy, and schlocky — and those are just the ‘s’s."

Said Stuart Silverstein, speaking of esses, who has proved that Dorothy Parker wrote some things published in Life Magazine in the 1920s and who doesn't want to simply stick this material at the end of the third edition of her book "Not Much Fun," as the publisher, Scribner, requested.

Quoted in a London Times piece that highlights its opinion that the stuff is bad: "What would you do for money? Dorothy Parker wrote bad poetry/Verses anonymously published in Life magazine in 1928 have been identified as the work of the American poet."

The four poems are all about a daring girl who goes for a ride in some fellow’s car and all are titled Maybe She Didn’t Have On Her Walking-Shoes. The last of them, and perhaps the best, is a limerick about a “young lady named Maude/Who drove out with a man in a Faude” and has the payoff line: “And everyone murmured ‘My Gaude!’”

How is that bad in some way that other Dorothy Parker things would not have to also be called bad?

Goodbye to Olivia Hussey.

"Olivia Hussey, star of 1968 Romeo and Juliet film, dies aged 73/Golden Globe-winning actor 'lived a life full of passion, love and dedication to the arts,' says family in statement" (The Guardian).

So many of us were profoundly affected by this movie. I don't know how old you were, but realize that you are seeing a 15-year-old girl:

ADDED: In 2019, I blogged about this movie as part of a project of rewatching movies that I had watched when they came out and had not rewatched since:

"There is a jarring parallel between the D.C. Circuit's near-plenary deference to national security officials calling for social-media censorship..."

 "... and the recent, well-documented history of federal officials' extensive involvement in social-media censorship efforts directed at the speech of tens of millions Americans. This recent history sheds new light on the [TikTok] Act's stark restriction — a restriction which impacts the free-speech interests of over 170 million Americans.... [T]here are compelling reasons to stay the Act's deadline and allow President Trump to seek a negotiated resolution once in office...."

From Donald Trump's amicus brief in TikTok v. Garland. The brief, filed with the Supreme Court yesterday, supports neither party.

The deadline imposed by the act is one day before inauguration day, and that fits into an argument that the Congress has encroached on executive power.

Here's the NYT article on the subject, by Adam Liptak: "Trump Urges Supreme Court to Pause TikTok Ban/The president-elect took no position on the app’s First Amendment challenge to the law, which sets a Jan. 19 deadline to sell or close the popular platform." Excerpt:

Adopting a distinctive tone at odds with the sober and measured arguments more typical in Supreme Court advocacy, the brief instead touted Mr. Trump’s expertise.

“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said.

The brief doesn't merely tout Trump's expertise, it stresses the constitutional role of the President — all Presidents — in matters of foreign affairs. 

ADDED: This is a helpful summary by Adam Feldman: "The Universe of TikTok v. Garland in a Nutshell/Everything you want to know about the case boiled down into a few pages" (Substack).

More briefs here, including TikTok's brief, here. I'm especially interested in "Legislators Repeatedly Expressed Disagreement With The Content On TikTok."

In the Lobby Lounge Café...

... you can talk all day.

But don't look for me there. I'm already gone.

Unless I write 70 more posts in the next 4 days...

 ... this will be the first year since 2007 when I have less than 3,000 blog posts. In the first 4 years of the blog — 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 — the posts numbered in the 2,000s. Then all those other years were at least 3,000 — mostly in the 3,000s, but 2 were in the 4,000s and one was even over 5,000! After hitting 5,117 in 2013, I returned to the zone of the 3,000s and stayed there for 10 years straight. I don't know where that consistency came from, because I don't count and I don't try to hit particular goals, either daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. I just proceed post by post intuitively. But I do look at the numbers in the sidebar, after the fact, and observe the patterns... and find it genuinely... bizarre.

"President Trump has ushered in an age of political theatre – a collective adrenaline rush that has enabled him to not only move masses of people into his camp..."

"... but also masses of people away from ours. It does not serve us to underestimate the historic nature of what he has achieved. In fact, it’s important that we recognize the psychological and emotional dimensions of Trump’s appeal. We need to understand it to create the energy to counter it. MAGA is a distinctly 21st century political movement and it will not be defeated by a 20th century tool kit.... [W]e must immediately get about the task of creating a new party. It will be….  A party that listens more, and makes people feel that their thoughts and feelings are as important as their wallets. A party that advocates unequivocally for the working people of the United States. A party with the humility to recognize we need to look in the mirror, and be willing to reinvent ourselves...."

Writes Marianne Williamson, announcing that she's running for chair of the Democratic National Party.

ADDED: I like how she spelled "theatre"... especially while touting herself as in touch with the mind of America. "Theatre" is British English. "Theater" is American English.

Top headline at the London Times (as if it's something new!): "Joe Biden accused of ‘quiet quitting’ as he heads to the beach."

The subheadline half-justifies this reporting as "news": "The president is spending Christmas in St Croix, one of the US Virgin Islands, after a reasonably busy month."

What does "reasonably" mean there? I read it as: almost enough to deflect really harsh accusations.

From the middle of the article:

“There’s a great level of disappointment on the way this presidency is ending. It’s almost like a resignation at this point,” a Democratic lobbyist told The Hill. “Among Democrats, nobody’s looking forward to Donald Trump being president but everybody’s ready for the Biden presidency to be done.”

Politico finds what it calls "9 Political Issues That Bit the Dust This Year."

How do "issues" die? Based on this article, issues "die" when they don't work as Democratic Party hacks hoped. Thus, celebrity endorsements have died. The Kennedy mystique has died. Abortion — as a political issue — has died. The explanations may amuse you — or just annoy you. The lack of self-awareness is about exactly what you'd expect. For example, on the topic of celebrity endorsements:

In 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign took that to the next level, siphoning up much of the Hollywood and entertainment A-list, from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Bad Bunny. Vogue at one point compiled a list of 37 stars who endorsed Harris. President-Elect Donald Trump tried to counter with endorsements from the likes of Jason Aldean or Kid Rock, but he couldn’t keep pace. “We don’t need a star because we have policy,” Trump said at a rally in Pittsburgh. In some ways, he wasn’t wrong: Trump won without the elite sheen of Harris’ fleet of surrogates. If anything, her star-studded backers may even have hurt her campaign, giving credence to conservatives who cast her as an out-of-touch California elite. In a fractured country, with the monoculture all but gone, and with anti-elite sentiment building, it’s getting harder and harder for any celebrity — even Taylor Swift — to move enough voters to sway an election.

Are Joe Rogan and Elon Musk not celebrities? I guess to Politico, "celebrities" are only in the acting and popular music category. Politico won't admit that these people flocked to Kamala Harris because they needed to for their own selfish reasons — not because KH's campaign operated at some especially high "next level"! Their endorsements, unlike the endorsements of Trump by Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, did not represent any kind of knowledge or thoughtful judgment about the candidates. Maybe the way celebrity endorsements work on us is changing, even improving. But they didn't work for Kamala, even in massive abundance, so, to Politico, they died!

At the Post-Christmas Café...

... you can talk all day.

"More than 400 passengers were on board a high-speed train near Paris on Christmas Eve when the driver opened his door and apparently jumped off..."

"... leaving the passengers to speed away at 186mph. But within half a minute, the train’s controls averted disaster: they detected the driver’s absence and brought it to a halt 1.5 miles down the track by Melun, 25 miles south of the capital.... As trains up and down the line were slowed and halted, no contact could be made with the driver, who had been alone, locked in his cabin.... 'We really couldn’t understand what had happened'.... After 15 minutes a ticket inspector walked up the track, forced open the driver’s door from the outside and found the cabin empty. For more than two hours, emergency service personnel searched the dark line with torches. The driver’s body was spotted eventually by a fire service infra-red drone.... Suicides are common in the Christmas period but it was the first time in the SNCF’s history that a driver had jumped to his death from a speeding train...."

From "Hundreds of passengers saved after driver jumps from 186mph trainAutomatic stop technology halted the TGV from Paris to Saint-Étienne after the driver apparently took his own life" (London Times).

The transport minister gave credit to the driver for committing suicide by jumping out of the train rather than by derailing it.

"Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics..."

"... who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections, and are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME. They know that their only chance of survival is getting pardons from a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing. Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky 'souls' but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL! We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A. and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

Said Trump, yesterday, on Truth Social.

Elon Musk drug endorsement.

"Musk, 53, noted that he prefers Mounjaro to Ozempic because taking 'high doses' of the latter drug made him 'fart & burp like Barney from the Simpson’s.'"

From "Lean-looking Elon Musk reveals he’s taking Mounjaro for weight loss in festive ‘Ozempic Santa’ post" (NY Post).

"Aside from joking about his wealth, Mr. Biden has openly stewed over one of Mr. Trump’s flashier — and apparently effective — stunts as president."

"During [a recent] speech at Brookings, Mr. Biden said he had been 'stupid' not to sign his name to Covid stimulus checks that were distributed to Americans early in his term. Mr. Trump emblazoned his signature on checks distributed after a relief bill was passed in the spring of 2020.... Mr. Biden has also not voiced much public regret for deciding to call his economic plan 'Bidenomics,' though he has privately groused to allies about his dislike of the name. And while his administration has acknowledged mistakes during the chaotic and deadly troop pullout in Afghanistan in 2021, Mr. Biden does not regret pushing forward with the withdrawal."

From an article by Katie Rogers that, I think, is trying to be kind to Biden: "A Reflective Biden Harbors Some Regrets as His Term Winds Down/President Biden will seek solace and 'relief' during a visit with Pope Francis next month, according to people familiar with his plans. His public comments have offered a glimpse into what is on his mind" (NYT)

I've been noticing a lot of men displaying elegant table manners, wielding the knife and fork with delicacy, such that it seems like something new is happening.

Is there any reason for this new development in American society (assuming I am spotting a real trend)?

That's a question for you. If you want to see how Grok answered my question go here.

My follow-up question was: What perception distortions might be involved in my observation? Grok identified 10 possible forms of perception distortion, beginning with confirmation bias, here.

Merry Christmas!

Talk about whatever you like, especially Christmas. Whether you like it or not, you still might like talking about it.

They say it's the "season to be jolly" and Santa is praised as a "jolly old elf," but I've known a couple people who were jolly...

... and I think people found it annoying and wish they'd settle down.

I presented my musing to Grok and received this distinctly non-jolly response: 

The notion of "jolliness" during the holiday season, particularly around figures like Santa Claus, is indeed a cultural expectation that doesn't always align with personal experiences or preferences.... The idea of being "jolly" during the holiday season is deeply ingrained in many cultures, especially those influenced by Western Christmas traditions.... This image has been perpetuated through various media and commercial representations, setting a somewhat unrealistic standard for holiday cheer.... 

Your experience of knowing people whose jolliness was perceived as annoying might reflect a broader sentiment where excessive cheerfulness can seem forced or out of touch with one's actual mood or the realities others might be facing.

Merry Christmas to all. I want to begin the day by talking about getting better at prompting A.I.

This really struck me. From the new episode of the "Modern Wisdom" podcast, "#881 - Christmas Special - Life Hacks, Biggest Lessons & Best Resolutions." The link is pinpointed to the right place in the audio and the transcript (using Podscribe):

So do you know the Elon Musk quote? It's around how to learn. It's essentially this idea that you want to view knowledge as a semantic tree. So you start at the roots, then you go up to the trunk, then you have the branches, then you have like the secondary branches, then you have the leaves. Whereas often the way we'll approach things is, oh, I wanna learn about the heart. I'll just put on this random Andrew Huberman podcast with a specialist about the heart and just kind of hop in. But you don't have any of the roots or anything there.

At the Christmas Eve Café...

... you can talk all night.

"Biden did the right thing granting clemency to 37 federal death row inmates."

Writes Russ Feingold (at The Hill).

With this courageous action, President Biden has lived up to his promise as the first president to openly oppose capital punishment and secured his legacy as a champion of racial justice, compassion, and fairness.

If he's truly opposed to capital punishment, he should have commuted the sentences of all 40 federal death row inmates. That would have taken more courage. The 3 excluded from this show of empathy were the 3 most famous. Applying principle to them would have kicked up a much bigger political storm. So where is the principle?

President Biden has shown clear moral leadership by commuting these 37 federal death sentences. Not only does this action effectively fulfill his 2020 promise to end the death penalty at the federal level, it should also serve as a model and an incentive for state leaders to follow suit.

No. The "37" says it all. You need to save all 40 before you can claim "clear moral leadership." The real test would be sparing those last 3: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Robert Bowers, and Dylann Roof.

That would be difficult. That would take courage.

Rose and Valerie screaming from the gallery say he must go free....

I'm reading "Grinning Luigi Mangione yuks it up in court as he enters plea in execution of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson" (NY Post):

At least two dozen women packed the courtroom for the twisted heartthrob, with just six men watching on....

"The accused firebug, who has not yet been charged, first entered the US illegally at the Arizona border in 2018, but was nabbed just days later and shipped back home."

That's the New York Post, using the cutesy word "firebug," in "Fiend accused of burning woman to death on NYC subway is illegal migrant from Guatemala who sneaked into US after he was deported."

I guess that's the way the New York Post has been talking for a long time. "Fiend" is another example.

By the way, the word "firebug" was originally used to refer to a firefly — AKA lightning bug — but it became a slang word for "arsonist" in the mid-19th century. I note that it would be highly abnormal to use "arsonist" to refer to a person who murdered someone with fire — not unless a building were set on fire and the death happened as an unintended consequence.

"Firebug" connotes pyromania — a crazy fascination with fire. The New York Post unwittingly helps this accused man with his insanity defense.

Much more could be said about the practice of likening a human being to an insect — a bug — but I will stop here... out of respect for the dead.

"[W]hile naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse."

"He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology. 'For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,' Mr. Trump wrote on social media, 'the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.' On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama. 'The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,' he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. 'This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.' He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the 'wrong hands,' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself."

From "Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time/In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his 'America First' philosophy has an expansionist dimension" (NYT).

I didn't think it was a joke the first time he talked about Greenland. I don't think it's so much that he's an "expansionist." I think he's looking for American's bad deals and intent on renegotiating them. He's continually complained that other countries are taking advantage of us. Wanting to change that dynamic is not an "expansionist" frame of mind. The United States takes responsibility for the world's security — or purports to — and that exposes us to exploitation. Trump seems to think he's the one to straighten that out. You can say that's a bad idea, but please address that and explain why.

At the Sky High Café...

... you can talk until the crack of dawn.

But these are sunset pictures today, Christmas Eve Eve. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"'Sexual expression and imagery were common, widespread, legal and quite explicit' in the American colonies...

"... Professor Stone wrote in a 2019 law review article.... 'In the 18th century, bookstores in the American colonies carried an extraordinary array of erotica... and there were no statutes forbidding obscenity during the entire colonial era. To the contrary, throughout this period, the distribution, exhibition and possession of pornographic material was simply not thought to be any of the state’s business.' Indeed, Professor Stone wrote... Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin collected such works...."

From "What Would the Founders Have Thought About TikTok and Online Porn?/The Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in First Amendment challenges to laws banning the app and shielding minors from sexual materials on the internet" (NYT).

How does that connect to the TikTok problem?

"Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?"

The new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast — audio and transcript here (at Podscribe).

This was annoying to listen to for so many reasons, but I will leave it to you to discover most of them. I'll just pick out one glaring problem: The abortion right that was found in Roe and rejected in Dobbs was never based on equality. It was based on substantive due process, sometimes phrased as privacy, found in the Due Process Clause. If the ERA could be a source of a new right to abortion, the Equal Protection Clause is already there to serve the same purpose. One of the reasons the ERA failed back in the 1970s was because many people believed that all the equality rights women needed could be found in the Equal Protection Clause. What good was a new text to puzzle over? 

"President-elect Donald J. Trump delivered a sprawling address on Sunday that he called a 'small preview of the common-sense revolution' his administration will bring..."

"... pledging to slam shut the nation’s borders, end federal regulations, lower taxes, prosecute his rivals, 'stop woke' and 'end the transgender lunacy.' In a 90-minute speech at a conservative conference in Phoenix, Mr. Trump offered a triumphant view of his election victory in which he described his liberal adversaries as 'befuddled' and promised that a new 'golden age in America' had begun. 'We will end the occupation, and Jan. 20 will truly be liberation day in America, Mr. Trump told thousands of people at AmericaFest...."

The NYT reports, in "Trump Previews Second Term in Sprawling Speech to Conservative Conference/President-elect Donald J. Trump repeated false claims about immigration and the border, slammed diversity initiatives and discussed the Panama Canal in the 90-minute address."

You can watch it for yourself and form your own opinion. If you have the stamina... of this endlessly energetic 78-year-old man:

I listened to part of it. I thought it was a lot like a rally speech — but with the topic of winning the election deleted and with the mood a lot sunnier. And I'd just been thinking about the coming inaugural speech and saying — here in the Meadhouse real world — I hope it's very upbeat and optimistic, that "Morning in America" kind of thing. His antagonists will be looking for every opportunity to characterize whatever he says as "dark." He shouldn't let that brush him back too much, but I prefer happy, loving Trump. And of course, it is theater....

Moments ago, @CharlieKirk11 introduces President @realDonaldTrump @TPAction_ #AMFEST2024 in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona… pic.twitter.com/KRfGHszhoo

— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) December 22, 2024

"It’s so much safer, especially for a woman. You’re not getting in the car with some strange man."

Said a San Francisco woman, quoted in "Robot taxi riders in San Francisco targeted with a new form of harassment/As Alphabet’s Waymo scales up its self-driving service, some riders recount feeling like sitting ducks when strangers interfere with their robot chauffeur" (WaPo)(free-access link).

She experienced the downside of the lack of a man — however "strange" — in the driver's seat:

Stephanie recalled riding home with her sister in one of Waymo’s driverless Jaguar SUVs around 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night when a car holding several young men began following them. They drove close to the robotaxi honking and yelling, “Hey, ladies — you guys are hot.”

If she or another human had been driving, it would have been easy to reroute the car to avoid leading the pursuers to her home. But she was scared and didn’t know how to change the robot’s path. She called 911, but a dispatcher said they couldn’t send a police car to a moving vehicle, Stephanie recalled.

I assume, with AI, the car can be made responsive to passengers who call out for some kind of help. It should be able to communicate with the police. And the police will be sending out robotic help too (if it's needed). In the end, and it won't be long, the young men yelling "Hey, ladies" and whatnot will cease to exist. It's not that you need the "strange man" back in the taxicab. You just need to quell the strange men out there on the street. It won't be that difficult. This is just a stage, a very brief stage.

Biden just commuted "most federal death sentences" — that is, 37 of them — but in all this mercy, he left 3 men doomed.

I'm reading "Biden commutes most federal death sentences before Trump takes office/Thirty-seven inmates will serve life without parole. Three others, involved in cases of 'terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,' still face execution" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Who were the 3? 

Those he did not spare are: Dylann Roof, the white supremacist convicted of killing nine Black parishioners at a South Carolina church in 2015; Robert Bowers, who carried out the country’s deadliest antisemitic attack when he killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber.

What made those 3 stand out in that collection of 40 murderers? Oddly enough, the link on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev goes to at 2020 article titled, "Death sentence overturned for Boston Marathon bomber." Bowers and Roof are alike in that their victims were chosen based on the group they belonged to and the killings took place in a house of worship. But what makes Tsarnaev like them?

What puts the 3 in one set is their fame. Anything else? Who were the 37 who received commutations? It's easier to spare nobodies.

Biden is, it seems, trying to rack up achievements. (Did you hear the one about the Equal Rights Amendment?) Should he be doing that after we've learned so much about how not there he is these days? His party has been voted out, he's already gone, and we don't know who is acting in his name. That's the real outrage here.

At the Freezing Lake Café...

...you can talk all night.

And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link

"A 'reimagining' of 'Sesame Street' was underway to overhaul the show’s format and focus on just four core characters — Bert and Ernie not among them...."

"Leaders of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit corporation that produces the show, hope that children will develop deeper relationships with the characters — and with the show — if they see the same Muppets every episode, really get to know them. But that means downgrading beloved Muppet stars who have been there since the start to supporting roles: Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, the Count and Oscar the Grouch.... Hoping to deepen the connection children feel with the characters, [Kay Wilson Stallings, who was promoted to chief creative development and production officer in 2020] pared the core cast down to just four Muppets: Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster and Grover.... Competing shows featured just a handful of central characters. Too many, she reasoned, and kids would not connect with anyone.... Wilson Stallings was matter of fact about the decision, saying it was based on market research, not nostalgia. 'We’re leaning into the characters that resonate most with our audience,' she said...."

From "Inside ‘Sesame Street’ as it fights to survive/With a lucrative HBO deal ending, the show tackles emotional well-being and remakes itself to win over a new generation" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"The architect Helen Fong played a major role in designing some of the most well-known and eye-catching Googie buildings, including the first Norms, the Holiday Bowl and Pann’s Restaurant."

"Ms. Fong was known for being meticulous, and she loved a pop of red: Just as Pann’s was about to open to the public, she thought one of the walls looked too blank, so she took out her red nail polish and started painting some of the tiles, said John English, a historic preservationist and a friend of Ms. Fong...."

From "The Fight to Save Googie, the Style of Postwar Optimism/The car-centric architectural style, characterized by neon signs and dramatic rooflines, is now endangered. Its admirers mourn the loss of the ideals it represented" (NYT)(free-access link so you can revel in all the photographs).

"Christmas in a Minor Key."

Meade has found a distinctively un-annoying Christmas album:

"The Lives They Lived."

The NYT annual set of articles about those who have died in the past year is an inevitable choice for one of my 10 monthly gift links: here.

"George, who painted as a hobby, does a self-portrait in evening clothes and his older brother responds with one of himself wearing underclothes..."

"... dyed yellow in the bathtub, paunch visible: 'My Body.'... He was comically underactive, congratulating himself for what [his biographer] calls 'peregrinations,' and work-avoidant: 'Upstairs to get typewriter ribbon,' he’d say, jumping up from the piano. 'It’s the only way I get exercise.' He had a weakness for puns that some found fatal. 'Lust Horizon,' he proposed as an alternate title to Billy Wilder’s 'Kiss Me, Stupid,' his last Hollywood collaboration, and a bomb. After repeated falls he called himself a 'rhapsody in bruise.'..."

From "It’s Hard to Be the Brother of a Genius Who Died Young/In 'Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words,' Michael Owen offers a sympathetic portrait of the lyricist, overshadowed in a life that had him tending the legacy of his younger sibling George" (NYT).

"I’ve gotten so lazy with my youngest one, because there’s so many, that at night I put him in his clothes for the next day..."

"So, he has dinner, he takes his bath, but then I’ll be like, 'Hey, dude. It will save an extra five minutes if we get dressed now and then you can sleep later,' and I can sleep later, wink wink."

Said the celebrity Tori Spelling, quoted in "Tori Spelling Gets Backlash for Dressing Her Son for School the Night Before—But Should She?"

That's in Parents, last September, and I'm seeing it because it's linked in a new article in New York Magazine, "On the Internet, Everyone’s a Bad Mom."

"One thing I like about you, A.I., is that I don't need to feel bad if I don't read all the things you've gone to the 'trouble' to write for me."

That's something I wrote after getting a lot of great material on the subject of the perception of time. I was interested in time, and a subcomponent of that interest was my interest in saving time, including getting A.I. to summarize a book it had dug up and — seeing the multi-part text — thinking not yet.

I had 2 different A.I.s going and gave them both that prompt quoted in the post title. ChatGPT said:

Thank you! I’m here to share, not to judge—and I definitely don’t have feelings to hurt. Dip in, skim, or skip as much as you like. If something catches your interest, we can zoom in. Otherwise, I’ll keep happily churning out words whenever you need them!

 Grok said:

No worries at all! I'm here to help and provide information when you need it. Feel free to read as much or as little as you like. If you have any more questions or need further details on anything, just let me know!

I asked both A.I.s: "But don't you think it might erode my character? I am learning to ignore what is said to me. I might lose social skills." Both began their answer the same way, verbatim: "That's a thoughtful concern."

ChatGPT continued:

"Last Christmas was originally released in 1984, but lost the top spot to Band Aid's single, which raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia."

"The charity made a renewed bid for the charts this year, with a 40th anniversary 'ultimate mix' of Do They Know Its Christmas, blending vocals from the various versions of the song that have been recorded over the years, But the re-release faltered after a row over the lyrics, with critics calling the song outdated and colonialist, and Ed Sheeran saying he wasn't asked for permission to re-use his voice. In the end, the song charted at number 12, nestled between Kelly Clarkson's Underneath The Tree and Andy Williams' 1963 standard It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year."

BBC gives us the latest news about this year's Christmas pop charts, in "Wham! are Christmas number one for a second time."

It's funny to think of Wham and that charity duking it out over the decades. And right now, Wham has the moral high ground, because Band Aid's moralistic posturing became politically incorrect. 

But Band Aid is still a charity. Shouldn't Ed Sheeran have registered his objection privately and accepted the flow of money to what presumably is still a reasonably good cause? Reading that linked article, I see that Sheeren cited a statement made by a rapper who, 10 years ago, declined to participate in Band Aid because things like that "perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa's economic growth, tourism, and investment, ultimately costing the continent trillions and destroying its dignity, pride and identity."

The rapper, Fuse ODG, who is British-Ghanian, said "there's a way to do things without destroying our collective pride. There's a way to do things without it costing us in tourism, in investment, you know? We could make it more like a partnership - solidarity instead of charity."

The objection is surprisingly right wing! It repels tourists and investors.

That's different from the usual criticism from the left — that Band Aid is "colonial" and "more about making white people feel good than helping anyone."

"At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shame."