Famous.

I'm reading "Conan O'Brien Party Guests Recall Nick Reiners 'Creepy' Questions Hours Before Parents Slain" (Enstarz):

Guests at a holiday gathering hosted by Conan O'Brien said they were unnerved when Nick Reiner repeatedly asked strangers "creepy" questions hours before his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner, were found slain in their Brentwood home, police and prosecutors said. According to RadarOnline, attendees described the questions — "What's your name? What's your last name? Are you famous?" — as abrupt and repetitive, delivered without context and continuing even after people tried to disengage.... 'It didn't come across as simple curiosity — it felt driven and repetitive,' one guest said. 'You could see people growing uneasy.' Hosts later asked him to leave, according to two attendees....

Hours later, Nick Reiner made himself famous. The murder he committed is a famous murder. It is now the most famous thing about his long-famous father. 

It shouldn't be possible to become famous through murder, but it very clearly is.

"I should not be treated like a terrorist for traveling within my own country by an agency that’s trash at its job anyway."

Tweeted Evita Duffy-Alfonso, the daughter of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, about the "absurdly invasive pat-down" TSA subjected her to after she, on behalf of her unborn child, declined to submit to the body scanner.

The agents were passive-aggressive, rude, and tried to pressure me and another pregnant woman into just walking through the scanner because it’s “safe.”... Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly if I’d handed over my biometric data to a random private company (CLEAR). Then I could enjoy the special privilege of waiting in a shorter line to be treated like a terrorist in my own country. Is this freedom? Travel, brought to you by George Orwell....

Can you interpret a photograph?

The fall of man.

Noam Chomsky, the world’s most famous critic of power structures, photographed at 30,000 feet with Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/zi05lGSrfX

— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) December 19, 2025

And what does Bill Clinton in a hot tub mean?

ADDED: If you drop Bill Clinton in a pot of boiling water, he will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place him gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, he will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, Bill Clinton will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on his face, him will unresistingly allow himself to be cooked into a sumptuous feast for.... Well, I don't know who it's for, but Bill sure looks dreamily blissful.

(See "Boiled Frog" (Wikipedia) for my source material, the version of the apologue in Daniel Quinn's "The Story of B.").

"Oh, lord. There's no way I could enjoy a meal with that poor piglet staring at me from across the table."

"Give me a great burrito from a taco truck or the perfect deli sandwich with salad and let the wealthy keep their creepy food."

A comment at this NYT article:

"Creepy food" is so apt.

Lots of photos at the link, but I'm low on free links at this point in the month, and we've still got 11 days to go. So you'll just have to take my word for it. I don't think all the food is "creepy," but it is all striving to look expensive to everyone who's hot to enjoy the life by spending large wads of money. I think the subtle subtext is: Don't go to these places.

No, it's not impressive. It's depressing.

Impressive https://t.co/IacxCOxpki

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2025

Who wants to watch robots dance? And Disney's Animatronic Lincoln has been around since the 1964 World's Fair. Still on display, giving the Gettysburg Address — at Disney World's "Hall of Presidents" since 1971:

Disney Animatronics have always been pretty dull. There's no real sense that Abraham Lincoln has returned or that any sort of magic is occurring.

Are we awed by the technology or do we find it offputting? Musk seems impressed that robots can dance. I'm impressed that human beings dance.

Sunrise — 7:01, 7:34.

It was very cold this morning, and the refrozen snow was incredibly slippery, so I only made it this far:

I would have put up with the cold and the wind, but the extra slippery — and bumpy — surface made me opt out of the full sunrise walk. I drove home and Meade walked out to the distant vantage point and then all the way home. Here's my favorite photo of his:

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"The pioneering American maker of the Roomba, iRobot — once the leader in robot vacuums — said that it had filed for bankruptcy..."

"... and that control of the company would be taken over by its Chinese supplier.... Chinese companies have been racing to dominate the robotics industry..... In 2022, Amazon said it would acquire iRobot and all of its debt for about $1.7 billion. But the deal fell apart under scrutiny from regulators in the United States and Europe who said it could undercut competition.... On Sunday, iRobot filed a bankruptcy petition in Delaware...."

From "Roomba Maker iRobot Files for Bankruptcy, With Chinese Supplier Taking Control/Founded in 1990 by three M.I.T. researchers, iRobot introduced its vacuum in 2002. Its restructuring will turn the company over to its largest creditor" (NYT).

Amazon + iRobot — the American entity — seemed too big, so now the iRobot will be part of a Chinese company. 

The New Yorker now has its entire 100-year archive digitized and on line.

You can get into everything starting here. I guess you need a subscription, but I have a subscription. I impulsively clicked into the year 1967 because I love 1967, and then into November 11, because I love Saul Steinberg:

But that's not the only Steinberg cover for 1967. There are at least 6 more! But don't get distracted.

"I was a little bitch. I just complained about everything."

Said Nick Reiner, questioned by Howard Stern about why he had written a script portraying his father as an asshole.

"What was the biggest complaint?" Stern wanted to know. The son could not itemize, in fact, he couldn't even stand by the assertion, in his movie script, that his father was an asshole. He took the blame onto himself: "I was a little bitch. I just complained about everything."

Howard keeps trying: "But was he not there enough for you, in your opinion?" Nick answers with exasperation: "No, he was there." 

Howard restates the question, as something of a joke: "He should have not been there?" Robin echoes: "He was there too much." Howard: "Yeah, big pain in the ass."

And the conversation moves on to the next topic. I can't find the full episode, but there is this contemporaneous (2016) written recap at Stern's website. I was interested in Rob Reiner's rejection of medical professionals and embrace of the idea that the parent know what is best for his child:

"We can do it!"

Link to Reddit: here. (The embedded video stopped working.)

"The medical profession of the twentieth century was a hegemon; today, it is a regional power. When a hegemon loses status..."

"... it can take a few paths. It can aim for restoration—bringing back the empire—which in this case would probably focus on gatekeeping. It can retreat, which might mean abdicating medicine’s broad public role, perhaps in favor of a narrow focus on earnings and technical skills. The last—and, in my view, the best—path is reinvention. Doctors can remake their profession by embracing the multi-polar medical landscape they now inhabit, and by acting as a kind of system stabilizer: working with other powers to help shape rules, norms, and relationships. A superpower may act as though it can stand alone, but middle powers know the value of diplomacy and coalition-building. Reinventing the medical profession will require greater engagement with the world outside of hospitals and clinics. Many physicians are taking to social media.... A growing number of doctors seem interested in leading health-care companies themselves or in running for office.... Diplomacy also requires a willingness to stand in opposition to others.... A few weeks ago, a dozen former F.D.A. officials, all of them physicians, wrote that they were 'deeply concerned' about 'the latest in a series of troubling changes'...."

Writes Dhruv Khullar, in "The Role of Doctors Is Changing Forever/Some patients don’t trust us. Others say they don’t need us. It’s time for us to think of ourselves not as the high priests of health care but as what we have always been: healers" (The New Yorker).

"Authorities were finally able to crack the case open after a man posted on Reddit that cops should investigate a possible rented gray Nissan with Florida plates that he spotted in Providence while having an odd interaction with a man."

I'm reading "'Heinous' suspect in Brown, MIT shootings ‘should never have been allowed in our country,’ says Noem" (NY Post).

"A jury convicted a Wisconsin judge Thursday of obstructing federal agents’ arrest of an undocumented immigrant from Mexico..."

"... giving President Donald Trump’s administration a rare win in its prosecutions of public officials who have challenged his agenda. The jury found Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan guilty of a felony, obstructing an official proceeding, but acquitted her of a misdemeanor, concealing a person from arrest. The verdict came after six hours of deliberations and Dugan could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.... Dugan... will no longer be able to continue as a judge because Wisconsin’s constitution bars people convicted of felonies from holding public office.... Many on the right said Dugan’s conduct was part of a 'deep state' mentality that had led to lax enforcement of immigration laws.... Some have sought to make this case about a larger political battle,' [said Interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.] 'While this case is serious for all involved it is ultimately about a single — a single bad day — in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil, nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.'"

WaPo reports.

It might seem odd that the judge was convicted of the felony but acquitted on the misdemeanor, but the misdemeanor required showing the act of hiding the person. 

From the prosecutor's closing argument: "'She was a frustrated and angry judge who was fed up, who decided to corruptly take matters into her own hands."

Sunrise — 7:17.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Ken Martin, the chairman of the D.N.C., said on Thursday that he had decided not to publish a report that he ordered months ago into what went wrong for the Democratic Party last year...."

"Mr. Martin will instead keep the findings under seal. He believes that looking back so publicly and painfully at the past would prove counterproductive for the party as it tries next year to take back power in Congress.... 'Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win?' Mr. Martin said in a statement. 'If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.'... Some Democratic donors have demanded a more thorough accounting of how exactly the party and Ms. Harris spent $1.5 billion in 15 weeks en route to losing every battleground state in 2024...."

From "The D.N.C. Is Scrapping Its Report on What Went Wrong in 2024/Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chairman, ordered the autopsy months ago but is now said to believe that its release would be counterproductive for the party" (NYT).

"The federal government on Thursday acted to put an end to gender-related care for minors across the nation, threatening to pull federal funding from any hospital that offered such treatment...."

"The administration’s action is not just a regulatory shift but the latest signal that the federal government does not recognize even the existence of people whose gender identity does not align with their sex at birth. If finalized, the proposed new rules, announced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a news conference Thursday morning, would effectively shut down hospitals that failed to comply.... The new rules come one day after a divided House of Representatives voted to approve legislation that would criminalize gender transition treatments for minors.... Another [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] rule would prevent Medicaid from paying for the treatments for minors. And the Food and Drug Administration announced that it was issuing warning letters to 12 manufacturers of breast binders, tight garments used to flatten and masculinize chest appearance under clothing, for 'illegal marketing' of the products to children as a treatment for gender dysphoria.... Mr. Kennedy cited [an HHS report] to argue that the treatments do not meet professionally recognized standards for medical care...."

From "Trump Moves to Prevent Access to Gender-Related Care for Minors/Proposed new rules would pull all federal financing from hospitals that continue to provide gender treatments for adolescents" (NYT).

The NYT expresses worries about denying "the existence of people whose gender identity does not align with their sex at birth," but recognizing the existence of transgender persons does not dictate the belief that they require medical treatment or that the currently proffered treatments are ethical. There are many phenomena that are recognized but not treated. That's the basis of the old credo "First, do no harm." 

"Obviously, celebrity portraits on the cover of Vanity Fair are not really about journalism in the way that you and I think about journalism."

"But then there’s the other side of Vanity Fair, which is real journalism. I’m surprised that a journalist would even need to ask me the question of 'Why didn’t I retouch out the blemishes?' Because if I had, that would be a lie. I would be hiding the truth of what I saw there.... If presenting what I saw, unfiltered, is an attack, then what would you call it had I chosen to edit it and hide things about it, and make them look better than they look?... This has been a fixture of my work for many years. I’ve photographed all political stripes just like this. You will find... beloved figures on the left photographed in the same way.... I go in not with the mission of making someone look good or bad. Whether anyone believes me or not, that is not what my objective is...."

Said the photographer Christopher Anderson, quoted in "The Vanity Fair photographer who disrupted Trumpworld’s polished image/Every line, spot, blemish and blood vessel was captured by Christopher Anderson’s lens. What was he thinking?" (WaPo)(gift link for photographs and the entirety of the interview with the photographer).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by VANITY FAIR (@vanityfair)

"Many, of course, now live in fear of Pornhub not paying up and of being exposed. 'Great,' says another user, a teenager..."

"... who shouldn’t be on the site but is. 'You just try to carve out a safe space where you can learn to objectify women and then this happens,' he continues. 'I don’t know what my mum will say if she ever finds out.' And as yet another user tells us: 'Gleeful feminists will be all over this, like we need a lecture about patriarchy on top of everything else.' He doesn’t have much time for feminists. Whether they are first, second, third or fourth wave, what they all need, and have ever needed, 'is a good seeing-to if they’re not frigid, which, chances are, they are.' His wife, he adds, won’t be best pleased if she finds out, 'but, frankly, she’s brought it on herself by not allowing that choking thing. She needs to take a good look at herself. I think we all know where the blame truly lies. Most women, from what I’ve seen, are gagging to be choked.'"

Writes Deborah Ross, in "Oh no! How will Pornhub’s users cope with being exposed? A hacking group now has the details of 200 million premium users" (London Times).

That's why I read the London Times, new-to-me expressions like "a good seeing-to." 

Eat Cheese or Die.

You may remember the old slogan:

The riff on New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die" license plate couldn't make it to the actual license plates here in Wisconsin, but it was the winner of our Wisconsin hearts and minds. Of course, in real life on real license plates, it had to be "America's Dairyland." And 40 years later, it still is... though it looks as though we might be about to replace it (with something simpler).

Anyway, speaking of real life, the implausible slogan — "Eat Cheese or Die" — may be (sort of) true. I'm reading "A Study Linked Cheese to Lower Dementia Risk. Is That Too Good to Be True?"

"Mr. Bongino’s obsession with his own image, as projected through a constant stream of gung-ho social media posts, landed flat in a proud law enforcement agency..."

"... where working hard and keeping a low profile has been a calling card of leadership. In a lawsuit filed in September, the former head of the bureau’s powerful Washington field office, Steven J. Jensen, said he was taken aback by the 'intense focus' that Mr. Bongino devoted to 'increasing online engagement through his social media profiles in an effort to change his followers’ perception of the F.B.I.'... Mr. Bongino... fell out of favor after lambasting Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case — and alienating Ms. Bondi’s friend and ally, Susie Wiles.... Mr. Bongino’s departure represents a tempered victory for Ms. Bondi, who accused him in a contentious meeting over the summer of planting negative stories about her in the right-wing news media, after the Justice Department issued a memo stating that the Epstein files warranted no further investigation. Mr. Bongino, apparently upset by the exchange, did not show up for work the next day...."

From "Dan Bongino Says He Will Step Down From F.B.I. in January/The departure of Mr. Bongino had seemed inevitable since August, when the White House hired Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, to share his job as deputy director" (NYT).

"[Trump] found it interesting as an intellectual issue. Do I think he’s going to run for a third term? No, I don’t think he will run for a third term."

Said Alan Dershowitz, quoted in "Can Trump run for a third term? It’s unclear, says Harvard professorAlan Dershowitz spoke to the president about the constitution at the Oval Office this week and says Trump 'found it interesting as an intellectual issue'" (London Times).

"it" = Professor Dershowitz's new book, "Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?"

Dershowitz's position on the subject: "It’s not clear."

Which is more likely:

Trump will run for a third term if he thinks he can get away with it.

Trump is interested in intellectual issues.

 

pollcode.com free polls

"Over nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump cut a swath through the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most reliable wingman."

"During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and both their Palm Beach homes. They visited each other’s offices and spoke often by phone, according to other former Epstein employees and women who spent time in his homes. With other men, Mr. Epstein might discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience. With Mr. Trump, he talked about sex...."

I'm reading "'Don’s Best Friend': How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women/The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency" (NYT). That's in the middle of the NYT home page right now. I thought you should know. Trump chased women. And there's a concept — pushed by the NYT for political purposes — that chasing women can be a game of ego and dominance and that female bodies can be used as "currency."

A more interesting example of the NYT's Epstein journalism is this from a couple days ago: "What to Know About the Origins of Jeffrey Epstein’s Wealth/The sources of Epstein’s fortune have long been a source of speculation. Here are six takeaways from a Times investigation that found that he built it through scams, theft and lies." There's a comment over there that expresses my reaction to the story.... Oh! The comments section is gone! I'll get it from the Wayback Machine.... Oh! "Wayback Machine has not archived that URL." Well, I guess I could try to reconstruct it. The idea was that the article completely fails to explain how Epstein acquired his fortune. It identifies the steps and names the men who assisted him in making these inexplicable steps but gives no clue why those men were motivated to give him so much money and responsibility. It's not at all "What to know." It's very obvious that the reader is deprived of the main thing we want to know when we read the article.

Sunrise — .6:54, 7:06, 7:27, 7:39.

All of today's photos are by Meade:

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"When I see my own ex at a party, I clam up. Go in on myself like a jump-started pangolin."

Writes Simon Mills, in "I know how Madonna and Guy Ritchie must have felt in that room/Reunited after 17 years for their son Rocco’s exhibition, the former It couple made a good show of civility. So why can’t everyone else do the same?" (London Times).

He's simultaneously like a mollusk and a scaly anteater, but we see what he means. 

I have actually discreetly exited several events when spying her across the room. If I know in advance that she will be attending something, I tend to avoid it altogether. It’s stupid, ridiculous, teenage behaviour — I am 61! Divorced for almost 13 years!... I can’t deal with the unnerving strangeness of not knowing someone I once knew so well.... A festering, debilitating, emotionally ruinous sense of shame remains, blighting progress and preventing sleep....

I sent a link to this article to my son Chris, and he texted: "At first I thought it was gonna be about them having to pretend their son is a great painter." 

"But [Rob Reiner's] films are predictable from their first moments, and they begin to establish a weird, dumb orthodoxy that if we're good to our kids, everything will be okay."

So writes David Thompson in "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film," read out loud on the New York Times "Daily" podcast today by the NYT critic Wesley Morris.

Morris uses that book to try to get to an honest assessment of the career of the recently murdered film director. I don't know if I'm getting the punctuation right, but from the transcript of the podcast, Thompson seems to have written:

"As a director, [Rob Reiner] seemed more struck — or poleaxed — by the notion that niceness could save the world. It is a petty thought, but one that stifles so many human and social realities. And so his work turns to pie in the sky with good and bad all too clearly labeled. He's carried along by a fundamental decency and a sense of scenes that play. But his films are predictable from their first moments, and they begin to establish a weird, dumb orthodoxy that if we're good to our kids, everything will be okay. This is not true. Life is more interesting."

More interesting and, at times, far far more horrible. 

But Thompson's words are left to speak for themselves as Wesley Morris makes a quick turn to a happy ending. He says: 

"If anyone says anything, if anyone has a problem... we'll just comment, Stop commenting on women's bodies! Right?"

"Use it against them. Am I right?... These are just starter ideas."

"No, she meant that I’m — you see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said..."

"... that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality. I’ve said that many times about myself. I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that — what’s the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive type personality. Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before."

Said Trump, responding to the report in Vanity Fair that his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had said he has an "alcoholic’s personality," quoted in "Trump brushes off Wiles' 'alcoholic’s personality' nick as allies torch Vanity Fair piece/Cabinet members and Trump himself have dismissed the unflattering quotes, claiming they were taken out of context" (Fox News).

I wonder why he said "possessive" — twice — before changing to "addictive." I think the word he was looking for was "obsessive." 

I like that he's supporting her, and it's probably in his interest to support her and provide explanation that makes her remark into something almost positive, rather than part of a dark and devastating bombshell that Vanity Fair must have thought it had put together.

What is the "alcoholic's personality" anyway? Is that just folk belief or is it supported by respectable research? Perhaps it doesn't matter as much as what Susie Wiles was attempting to describe seeing in Trump. She had an alcoholic father, and presumably something makes her see Trump as that father figure, and Trump initially included her in his inner circle because of her famous father. That's a very specific and personal story that stands apart from whatever this concept of "alcoholic's personality" is taken to mean by the general public that harbors folk beliefs and little familiarity with the scholarly literature.

“If you read between the lines, it’s not that bad."

Said Rob Reiner after reading Roger Ebert's famous "Hated It" review out loud, for laughs:

It's a funny punchline, reminiscent of "Dumb and Dumber"'s "So you're telling me, there's a chance?"

But what was it that bothered Ebert so much about Reiner's movie, "North"?

Here's more of Ebert's review:

[The main character is] a kid with inattentive parents, who decides to go into court, free himself of them, and go on a worldwide search for nicer parents. This idea is deeply flawed. Children do not lightly separate from their parents – and certainly not on the evidence provided here, where the great parental sin is not paying attention to their kid at the dinner table. The parents (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander) have provided little North with what looks like a million-dollar house in a Frank Capra neighborhood, all on dad’s salary as a pants inspector.

Sunrise — 7:02, 7:16, 7:28.

Write about whatever you want.

"Over the course of 11 interviews, Ms. Wiles offered pungent assessments of the president and his team: Mr. Trump 'has an alcoholic’s personality.' Vice President JD Vance has 'been a conspiracy theorist...'"

"'... for a decade' and his conversion from Trump critic to ally was based not on principle but was 'sort of political' because he was running for Senate. Elon Musk is 'an avowed ketamine' user and 'an odd, odd duck,' whose actions were not always 'rational' and left her 'aghast.' Russell T. Vought, the budget director, is 'a right-wing absolute zealot.' And Attorney General Pam Bondi 'completely whiffed' in handling the Epstein files."

From "Trump’s Top Aide Acknowledges ‘Score Settling’ Behind Prosecutions/In interviews with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said Trump 'has an alcoholic’s personality,' called JD Vance a 'conspiracy theorist' and concluded that Pam Bondi 'completely whiffed' the early handling of the Epstein files" (NYT)(gift link)..

Here's the Vanity Fair article: "Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the 'Junkyard Dogs': The White House Chief of Staff On Trump’s Second Term (Part 1 of 2)Throughout the first year of Donald Trump’s second administration, Vanity Fair writer Chris Whipple has interviewed Wiles amid each moment of crisis. This insider’s account joins a portfolio of portraits for an unflinching, up-close look at power—and peril."

Here's Wiles's response, on X. It's quite generic:

Challenged on his statement about Rob Reiner, Trump explained, "Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all.... I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape, or form."

Let’s be clear about something.

Trump wrote this morning that what happened to Rob Reiner and his wife Michele was a very sad thing and may they rest in peace.

He didn’t celebrate his death.

He did say how he felt about the man who hated him with every ounce of his being… pic.twitter.com/wdSuwjWDQr

— RealAF Patriot (@RealAF_Patriot) December 15, 2025

The full quote: "Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned. He said — he knew it was false, in fact it’s the exact opposite — that I was a friend of Russia, controlled by Russia. The Russia hoax — he was one of the people behind it. I think he hurt himself, career-wise. He became like a deranged person. Trump derangement syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape, or form. I thought he was very bad for our country."

Compare that to his earlier statement, and you'll see that a big difference is the omission of a reverent acknowledgment of the profundity of death. The original statement begins and ends with what we would expect from a decent and conventional reaction: "A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood.... May Rob and Michele rest in peace!" It's the stuff in the middle that was the problem. Notice the multiple elements to this filling. I'll color code them:

Swans on the ice at sunrise.

This morning, at 7:26:

They don't seem to like standing on the ice — and there is open water close by — but there they stay, slipping about and shifting from one foot to the other.

This video is by me. You'll see Meade, at 0:40, making his own swan/sunrise video. Ah! Here it is:

And here's a still shot (by me) at 7:28, showing ice looking like broken plate glass piled up on the shore:

"In a little while, you’ll be seeing I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth. Literally, they put words in my mouth."

"They had me saying things that I never said coming out. I guess they used AI or something. So we’ll be bringing that lawsuit. A lot of people were asking, ‘When are you bringing that lawsuit?’ Even the media can’t believe that one. They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with January 6 that I didn’t say and the beautiful words that I said … talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said, they didn’t say that but they put terrible words. They actually have me speaking with words that I never said and they got caught because I believe somebody at BBC said, 'This is so bad, it has to be reported.' That’s called fake news."

Said Trump, yesterday, quoted in "Trump sues BBC for $10bn over ‘fake news’/The broadcaster has apologised for a misleading edit of the president’s speech before the Capitol riot, which Trump said put ‘terrible words in my mouth'" (London Times).

From the complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida:

At the Monday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

A historian weighs in The chief executive of Ish Entertainment uses the work of a historian to comment on the similarity between the U.S. today and France just before the Revolution.

An excerpt from "The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV" by Michael Hirschorn in the NYT. 

The historian Robert Darnton described an uncannily similar moment in “The Revolutionary Temper: Paris 1748-1789,” his brilliant 2023 account of the decades leading up to the French Revolution. The preconditions were all there: suffocating top-down control of the media, rapid technological change, let-them-eat-cake behavior among the courtier class, weaponized religious bigotry, mansions with hideously de trop ballrooms. OK, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not quite Voltaire. But there was a pedophilia scandal involving Louis XV: Public obsession with the king’s many mistresses helped give rise to so-called libelles, cheaply printed, semi-factual pamphlets that speculated on, among other matters, the king’s supposed never-ending supply of teenage girls. It would have fit right in on TikTok. Reverence turned to mockery; mockery begot contempt; and then. …

Libelles ≈ social media. 

REVISION: The original headline was "A historian weighs in on the similarity between the U.S. today and France just before the Revolution," but the historian didn't comment on the similarity. The author of the article Michael Hirschorn, identified at the link as "the chief executive of Ish Entertainment," is the one who picked things out of the history and made the comparison. Thanks to commenter Narr for drawing attention to this.

"After six hours of Magafication, I hobble home and wash off the drag. I pull off the lashes; the fake tan pools in the shower tray.... The relief is indescribable. "

 

That's Poppy Sowerby in The London Times. The experiment was performed in Manhattan — uptown on Fifth Avenue and downtown, in the East Village, where she lives.

Trump accuses Rob Reiner of causing his own death through "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

Here's what Trump posted at Truth Social:

"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"

Reiner's son Nick has been arrested for the murders. Assuming Nick Reiner is indeed the murderer, he was certainly angry at his father, but it's absurd to think that the son's anger toward the father is about the father's recent political expression. 

Virtually everyone else has responded to the news of the murder with praise for Reiner's work as an actor and director and has chosen to leave politics for another day. Trump went to the complete opposite extreme, speaking not just about his political opposition to the man but blaming Reiner for his own death and making it all about Trump and larding his statement with self-praise — surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness! — to the point where many readers will wonder whether this is satire.

I mean, is it possible that Trump believes he is doing satire in honor of a great satirist?

"Join legendary director Rob Reiner and his son Nick Reiner as they discusses their new film 'Being Charlie,' about a troublesome 18-year-old..."

"... who breaks out of a youth drug treatment clinic, returns home to Los Angeles, and is given an intervention by his parents and forced to go to an adult rehab...."

"To commemorate the abolition of slavery, the [Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee] had recommended an image of Frederick Douglass on the obverse and shackled and unshackled hands on the reverse."

"To honor women’s suffrage, a World War I-era protester carrying a 'Votes for Women' flag. And to evoke the civil rights movement, a 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, books in hand, helping to desegregate the New Orleans school system in 1960. [Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, authorized by law to make final decisions about coin designs] opted instead for the more general, and much whiter. For the Mayflower Compact, a Pilgrim couple staring into the distance. For the Revolutionary War, a profile of Washington. For the Declaration of Independence, a profile of Thomas Jefferson. For the Constitution, a profile of James Madison. And for the Gettysburg Address, a profile of Lincoln on the obverse, and on the reverse, a pair of interlocking hands. No shackles."

From "The War on ‘Wokeness’ Comes to the U.S. Mint/The Treasury Department unveiled new coins celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. They failed to include planned designs featuring abolition, women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement" (NYT).

It does seem that the celebration of the 250th anniversary should concentrate on things that happened around 250 years ago, not on later events, but even Bessent's 5 choices include 2 that are not from the era of the founding. The Mayflower Compact is over a century earlier, and the Gettysburg Address is almost a century later. 

This sentence bothered me:

"The search for the gunman who killed two people at Brown University in Rhode Island dragged into Monday..."

"... after officials said a person of interest detained earlier was released because they could not find enough evidence connecting him to the shooting.Mayor Brett Smiley of Providence, R.I., said Sunday night that officials had no way of knowing if the attacker that sent the Ivy League campus into lockdown on Saturday was still in the city.... Brown officials said exams would not be held as scheduled for the rest of the semester, and that students were free to go home. 'For the moment, we encourage everyone to focus on their own safety and well-being,' the provost said...."

The NYT reports.

How was someone who was seen by so many people able to leave the scene and escape capture or even identification? Weren't there cameras? Isn't there technology to identify people from photographs?

I asked Grok those questions, and the answer seems to be that the gunman wore a mask, slipped out of the room quickly, and, once on the street, walked casually and blended into the crowd. Students in the room were focused on running or hiding, not looking at the man. There actually weren't many cameras in the building, and there's no footage of the shooting. There seems to be no usable photograph of his face.

"Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were killed by their son, Nick, according to multiple sources who have spoken with family members."

"Police have not yet confirmed the account.On Sunday, Dec. 14, at about 3:30 p.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) was called to a home to provide medical aid, the LAFD told PEOPLE. Upon arrival, they found a man, 78, and a woman, 68, dead. Sources confirm the victims were Rob and Michele. Police say Nick, 32, is alive and being questioned. No arrests have been made...."

People reports.

From the NYT obituary: "Mr. Reiner, who initially rose to fame playing Meathead, Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, on the sitcom 'All in the Family”' in the 1970s, went on to become a remarkably versatile film director. He seemed equally adept at the mockumentary ('Spinal Tap,' 1984), the coming-of-age film ('Stand by Me,' 1986), the children’s classic ('Princess Bride,' 1987), the romantic comedy ('When Harry Met Sally …' 1989) and the courtroom drama ('A Few Good Men,' 1992)."

He contributed so much to the culture we Baby Boomers lived through in the 70s and 80s. 

Here he is talking to Bill Maher for an hour and a half, just last September, on the occasion of the release of the 40-years-later sequel to "Spinal Tap":

REINER, at 3:40: "Nobody's ever done a sequel 41 years after the first one."

MAHER: "It's great that they're all still here."

REINER: "Yes. It's a plus. It's a plus. Although we have a bit, we have a bit in the second one, which I hope you'll see at some point... where the, a guy who's a promotion guy... says to... them, listen, it will help your legacy if at least one of you were to die during the concert, because... you know...."

MAHER:  "So true. I mean, it's the best career move anybody ever makes."

REINER: "Right. And yeah. And... Chris... as Nigel says... I don't wanna die. And then McKean as David says, but you settle for a coma. And he says, oh, well, that, that's very good. Thinking outside the, outside the literal box...."

Sunrise at -7° (wind chill -29°).

That was too cold for me, but not for the intrepid Meade. At 7:20, 7:20, and 7:24:

Fabulous steam fog today. In video form, at 7:25:

The city looks like it's on fire at 7:28:

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Jeffree Star demonstrates how it's done.

On TikTok:

"I'm pretty sure the whole Karen meme is a sophisticated psy-op."

TikTok, below the fold:

"Even as a child, I’d watch Uncle Henry force Toto into the basket, with Dorothy sobbing in the background..."

"... and think, It’s only fair. I mean, he did bite the woman."

Writes David Sedaris, in "And Your Little Dog, Too/Two small dogs, both unleashed, rushed toward me, snarling, and one of them bit me on my left leg, just below the knee. It all happened within a second" (The New Yorker).

A few days after I was bitten in Portland, I wrote a short essay about the experience, which I read at a show in Anchorage, Alaska. The audience reacted much the way people had at the Salem book signing. “Really?” I said. “I get nothing here?”

“Dogs are really good judges of character!” someone called out from the darkness.

"Mom called what we did 'unschooling'..."

"... a concept championed by the home-schooling pioneer John Holt. She agreed with his assertion that 'schools are bad places for kids,' or at least for a certain kind of kid; my brother Aaron, she decided, was better suited for public school and was sent off on the bus each morning. I, on the other hand, was a 'creative global learner,' and Mom said that she was going to give me a 'free-form education' in order to 'pursue passions.' Other than math, which I began to do by correspondence course, I mostly spent my days with her visiting shops, libraries and restaurants of our rapidly-growing suburb, or else having 'project time' — drawing superheroes, rereading my David Macaulay and Roald Dahl books, or writing short stories.... Mom had been going through a hard time — ever since we’d moved to Plano, Texas, her social life was dim, her career as a children’s magazine editor had been put on hiatus, and her own mother had begun a long decline into dementia — but... 'You are better than any grown-up, Stef. You are more than all I need'...."

Writes the novelist Stefan Merrill Block, in "Home-Schooled Kids Are Not All Right" (NYT).

Here's his memoir, "Homeschooled" (commission earned).

I'm interested in seeing "unschooling" again.

The ignominious Chia Pet deployed against Bari Weiss.

The headline at Variety is "Big Advertisers Appear Wary of CBS News’ Bari Weiss Town Hall Format." 

Not only is there that dismissive rhyme — "Wary of... Bari" — there's the attack of the Chia Pet:

The news special aired at 8 p.m. on Saturday, one of the least-watched hours in broadcast TV. And that may have contributed to a relative dearth of top advertisers appearing to support the show. During the hour, commercial breaks were largely filled with spots from direct-response advertisers, including the dietary supplement SuperBeets; the home-repair service HomeServe.com; and CarFax, a supplier of auto ownership data. Viewers of of the telecast on WCBS, CBS’ flagship station in New York, even saw a commercial for Chia Pet, the terra-cotta figure that sprouts plant life after a few weeks....

The ignominious Chia Pet!

For a substantive overview of the town hall, you might read "7 highlights from Erika Kirk's CBS News town hall." Did you watch it? Did you watch it in the actual 8 p.m. time slot? Do you feel you ought to watch it, as you obviously still can, on YouTube, or do you feel you already know everything Bari Weiss and Erika Kirk might say to each other? 

Did Trump say something about Karoline Leavitt's mouth?

I'm trying to understand the background to the satire in last night's "SNL" cold open:

It's better to know the background before attempting to get the satire. The fun is lost if you have to research it after the fact, but that's what I did. The question in the post title was my Google search, and I came up with this:

Wow, he actually said, about Leavitt, "When she goes on television, Fox, like I mean, they dominate. They dominate when she gets up there with that beautiful face and those lips that don't stop — pop pop pop — like a little machine gun."

"SNL" is so lucky to have him. The best lines are straight from the transcript of his ad lib remarks. What can they add?

Well, what they add is the sexualization. Trump was admiring her professional performance as press secretary. "SNL" is turning it into something completely sexual. They think they have a privilege to set back the progress of women in the workplace.

My tiny, squeaky voice says they don't.

"Police Say Jewish Community Targeted in Deadly Sydney Attack/Two people were in custody after the shooting at Australia’s best-known beach during a Jewish event."

The NYT reports.

"The rare mass shooting sent crowds scattering on Australia’s best-known beach.... Shootings are rare in Australia, a country with one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world."

"Over his long career, Mr. Allen has made two films — 'Crimes and Misdemeanors' in 1989 and 'Match Point,' 16 years later — about deceitful men who murder women and get away with it."

"The evasion of consequence has been an enduring source of fascination. In the end, perhaps Mr. Epstein provided Mr. Allen with something even more valuable than cachet: potential material."

Writes Ginia Bellafante, in "Woody Allen Is Not Sorry About His Friendship With Jeffrey Epstein/The nonagenarian director is taking a slightly different tack than many of the other powerful people associated with the disgraced former financier" (NYT).

Woody is in some of those photos the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee bestowed upon us the other day. We're told: "The images suggest that the two men, both children of postwar working-class Brooklyn, were better acquainted than previously believed. They also indicate just how taken the culturally privileged can be with the financially extravagant, felony sentencing be damned."

That is to say, Woody liked going to the lavish parties at Epstein's gigantic house in Manhattan. 

Sunrise — 7:00.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"An alleged gunman remains on the loose after killing at least two people and critically injuring another eight on the campus of Brown University, police said."

The NY Post reports.

Help me think of a term to apply to articles like this, something that expresses why it bothers me so much.

It's not "fake news," because it's not even news:

Here's a link to the article, in The Washington Post, which I'm not even reading. I don't read articles that fall into this category. I'm just seeking a name for the category. The headline and the photograph do engage me. They're almost funny, but I feel some empathy for the people who the Washington Post seems to believe are out there hungering for whatever this is.

ADDED: One idea is "the news for women," which is a tag I began in 2011 but hadn't used since 2016. I just forgot about it, but it might express what I'm looking for here, though it has the obvious limitation. I think there are men in the (perceived) audience for this kind of emotional support.

"After losing it at the top of that mountain 60 years ago, the American government still refuses to acknowledge that anything ever happened."

"The whole mission was wrapped in deception from the very beginning. A trove of files just discovered in a garage in Montana show how a celebrated National Geographic photographer built an elaborate cover story for the covert operation — and how the plans completely unraveled on the mountain. Extensive interviews with the people who carried out the mission and once-secret documents stashed away in American and Indian government archives reveal the extent of the debacle, and the ways American officials at the highest levels, including President Jimmy Carter, tried to cover it up years later...."

From "How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device? A plutonium-packed generator disappeared on one of the world’s highest mountains in a covert mission that the U.S. will not talk about" (NYT)(gift link).

5°, 7 a.m.

Don't even ask about the wind chill. But we were out. Meade got this:

"[Hungary] now spends 5 percent of its gross domestic product on family policies, a greater percentage than what the United States devotes to defense."

"It offers grandparental leave. It furnishes reduced mortgage rates to married couples planning families. It provides parents $30,000 loans — which don’t need to be repaid if they have three or more children. On Oct. 1, all women with three children gained lifetime personal income tax exemptions. Next year, mothers under 40 with two kids will become exempt as well. 'For the long-term survival of a nation, it is worthwhile,' said Hungary’s culture minister, Balazs Hanko...."

From "Can governments actually spark a baby boom? These countries are trying. Governments are testing whether a mix of perks, incentives and ideology might reverse shrinking population trends. Here’s what they’ve learned" (WaPo).

"Why did The New Yorker, which perpetuates the myth that they employ an army of meticulous fact-checkers, pollute our understanding of mind and brain by publishing these fabrications for decades?"

Asks Steven Pinker, on X, as he reads the New Yorker article "Oliver Sacks Put Himself Into His Case Studies. What Was the Cost?"

Pinker answers his own question like this: "Because their primary commitment is to a belletristic, literarist, romantic promotion of elite cultural sensibilities over the tough-minded analyses of philistine scientists and technologists, their rival elite.... A common denominator behind Sacks's fabrications was that ineffable, refined intuition can surmount cerebral analysis, which is limited and cramped. It's a theme that runs through some of their other blunders, such as... [t]he many articles by Malcolm Gladwell (like Sacks, a fine essayist) which mixed good reporting with dubious statistical reasoning and misleading claims (e.g., that only practice, not talent, is necessary for achievement, or that IQ above 120 doesn't matter)."

From the New Yorker article, which is by Rachel Aviv: 

"It’s 100 percent my intention to build this franchise into the next Disney."

Said Alan Chikin Chow, quoted in "'Alan’s Universe' Shows What It Might Look Like to Win at YouTube/As Gen Alpha’s attention drifts from TV and movies, video creators like Alan Chikin Chow are eager to fill the void" (NYT)(gift link so you can get more info and see quick clips of the awful video that is the art of our time, enfolding our children).

Some content creators attempt to tailor material to TikTok, Instagram and any other potentially profitable platform. But by 2020, Chow, aware that the Trump administration might ban TikTok, had also read the book “Essentialism,” whose message he summarized as “you can be good at many things or you can the best at one thing.” He threw himself into YouTube, specifically YouTube Shorts, videos often under a minute that are designed to be watched on phones.... 

The audience is heavily Generation Alpha, children roughly 7 to 14 who grew up with screens.

A wan vision of failure.

From the front page of the New York Times.

Here's the article: "Biden Has Raised Little of What He Needs to Build a Presidential Library/His library foundation has told the I.R.S. that by the end of 2027 it expects to bring in just $11.3 million — not nearly enough for a traditional presidential library."

That article has 4 authors. 4 authors in search of a President.

ADDED: A few things from the article:

1. An excellent joke from a big donor named John Morgan:  “The Biden staff, they ruined any type of good library for him. He’ll be lucky to have a bookmobile.”

2. They might need to repurpose "pre-existing Biden institutions at the University of Delaware."

3. Bill Clinton is out there seeking donations for an expansion to his presidential library, and he's doing a better job of maintaining relationships with donors.

4. Obama's presidential library is ridiculous. It's a "still-unfinished 'presidential center' in Chicago — not technically a presidential library,' since it will not include hard copies of White House documents — will include a vegetable garden, a branch of the city library, and a basketball gym." Let me add on to that and say it suggests that Biden's best move should be to end to the grandiose bullshit that is the "presidential library"? 

Sunrise — 6:48, 7:09, 7:12, 7:27.

Finally, we got a richly colorful sunrise, the first one of December. 

Yesterday, we had a huge crowd of swans, and today they were entirely gone, from this side of the lake anyway. I thought I heard them in the distance. Maybe over by the terrace and the frat houses. But where we were the coots had reestablished cootville. Walking back, I thought I saw an eagle, and a bit later I heard an unusual bird cry. Eagles don't sound eagle-y to me. But it was an eagle. In fact, 3 eagles! 

Meade caught the birds:

Tomorrow, it will be difficult to get out at all. The National Weather Service is saying "wind chills as low as 29 below expected." That's a little crazy! 

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Why everything is ‘aesthetic’ to Gen Z and Alpha/'Aesthetic' is now an adjective and a one-word compliment. Why does it still sound wrong to older ears?"

That headline at the Washington Post sent me right to the OED to see when "aesthetic" first became an adjective. 

The relevant meaning is "Of a thing: in accordance with principles of artistic beauty or taste; giving or designed to give pleasure through beauty; of pleasing appearance." The OED traces that back to the 1800s:

"The exact spot that held me: 38°40'55.3"N 109°38'45.3"W. If nothing else, let this stand as a reminder to others. Quicksand is real."

"I didn't believe it before today. It does not care how experienced you are. It only cares that you stepped in the wrong place at the wrong time."

From the Reddit post, "I Had to be Rescued off the Hayduke Trail Today in Arches National Park After Getting Stuck in Quicksand."

The story appears at many news sites now, including "Stuck in Quicksand, a Hiker in Utah Has His SOS Answered/Austin Dirks used a Garmin satellite device to reach emergency responders, who rescued him in a remote canyon in Arches National Park" (NYT). That's a free link, and there's some good video there, showing the rescue.

A quote from one of the recipients of the call for help: "We always try not to be judgmental. But you’re thinking, Quicksand, really? It’s probably some tourist with their foot stuck in the mud somewhere."

AND: Dirks shows up the comments section at the NYT:

"Ex-Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore told mistress he was going to make her watch him kill himself — with butter knives, kitchen scissors."

 That's the disturbing headline in The New York Post.

The inconsolable 39-year-old [Moore] allegedly burst into the apartment of his executive assistant and mistress, Paige Shiver, on Wednesday, where he grabbed butter knives and kitchen scissors and told her he was going to make her watch him commit suicide. Shiver, 32, had broken off the illicit tryst with her boss just two days before, prosecutor Kati Rezmierski said during Moore’s arraignment on Friday afternoon.The pair has been in an “intimate relationship” for a number of years, she added.... Shiver reported their relationship to the University of Michigan’s athletic department when Moore continued to call and text her, despite her efforts to ignore him, prosecutors said.... Prosecutors on Friday described to the court how an enraged Moore told his mistress, “you ruined my life,” and that he was going to kill himself and “make you watch.”...

"Size of Life."

A beautiful and entertaining graphic depiction of the relative size of various life forms.

I've always loved perceptions about size. I've collected them over the years using my tag "big and small" — you know, the large boulder the size of a small boulder, the Santa Claus hat, and all the rest — so I'm happy to have something else, something so good, to add to my collection.

"Life is an excruciating phase in the life of everyone."

Wrote Nell Zink, in "Sister Europe,” quoted in the Dwight Garner section of the NYT piece "Our Book Critics on Their Year in Reading," and that's a free link to the NYT because Garner does such a fine job of finding sentences to quote.

Here's his book — which I've bought for myself and others — collecting quotes in the same manner you'll find in that "Year in Reading" piece: "Garner's Quotations/A Modern Miscellany" (commission earned). 

And here's the commission-earned link for "Sister Europe," which I bought on the strength of that one sentence.

Here's one more quote from that "Year in Reading" (this one's by Mariel Franklin): "There was something about air travel that made me think of Swiss euthanasia clinics."

"One possibility of what we get out of it is basically a spheres of influence kind of organization of the world..."

"... something we haven't really seen since the late 1800s. This is a world in which the United States dominates its own territory, that China dominates the Pacific, and that the Europeans dominate Europe — but if they don't get their act together, maybe Vladimir Putin dominates Europe.... I think this is where we see the America First doctrine becoming something closer to Americas First — Americas with an S — that he views the region as basically the subsidiary of the United States. And you know, I've traveled with President Trump. I've covered 5 American Presidents since I got back to Washington... and my takeaway is that Trump is really not an isolationist. He never has been. He's actually more of a unilateralist.... He wants the total freedom of action. He knows that he is not really interested in democracy promotion. He knows that he wants to prioritize economics and economic development over everything, even if those economics don't necessarily come with security benefits to the us.... [E]ach region of the world — and even our allies — are going to have to learn to depend on themselves.... I think the fundamental trust in the US as the defender of a certain set of concepts of the West has been shattered for some time...."

Says David Sanger in today's excellent episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Trump’s Plan to Reorder the World."

AND: Here's the "National Security Strategy" document Sanger is discussing.

ADDED: There's some discussion of the Monroe Doctrine in that podcast, so

"Across the country, a small but growing number of educators are experimenting with oral exams to circumvent the temptations presented by powerful artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT."

"Such tools can be used to cheat on take-home exams or essays and to complete all manner of assignments, part of a broader phenomenon known as 'cognitive off-loading.' [One teacher] tells her students that using AI is like bringing a forklift to the gym when your goal is to build muscle. 'The classroom is a gymnasium, and I am your personal trainer,' she explains. “I want you to lift the weights.'"

I'm reading "To AI-proof exams, professors turn to the oldest technique of all/A growing number of educators are finding that oral exams allow them to test their students’ learning without the benefit of AI platforms such as ChatGPT" (WaPo)(gift link).

I stare the nerve-wracked student in the face and say "Is using AI is like bringing a forklift to the gym when your goal is to build muscle?"

The student, knowing his grade in my "Logic and Language" course depends on how fluently and sensibly he responds to that prompt, answers:

Sunrise — 7:16, 7:23.

After 3 days hiding from the ice and cold, I finally made it back out to the sunrise.

The swans were going crazy celebrating the coming of the light. Here's Meade's video:

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Forced to marry her cousin at 12, Kouhkan became pregnant at 13 and gave birth to a son. She suffered physical and emotional abuse..."

"... for years. On the day her husband was killed, Kouhkan found him beating their son, then aged five. She called her husband’s cousin, Mohammad Abil, for help. When he arrived a fight broke out which resulted in the death of her husband...."

From "Child bride spared execution in Iran after blood money is paid/Guardian story helped to draw attention to planned hanging of Goli Kouhkan over death of abusive husband" (The Guardian).

"Iran executes the highest number of women in the world, according to available data. Amnesty International said that at least 30 women were executed in the country last year. At least 42 women have been executed in 2025 so far – 18 for murdering their husbands, including two child brides, according to Iran Human Rights."

"Nuzzi’s book compares in first week sales to those like John Fetterman's 'Unfettered' (2,600 copies in its first week) and Michael Wolff's 'All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America' (3,000 copies)..."

"... both of which were largely considered busts. Experts theorized 'Canto' was an example of the disconnect between media elites and consumers, and that scandal-filled headlines preceding its release exhausted the public interest before the book even hit the shelves...."

From "Olivia Nuzzi’s 'Canto' Sells Just 1,200 Print Copies In First Week" (Forbes).

"The Trump administration wants to persuade four more countries to leave the European Union to 'Make Europe Great Again'..."

"... according to reports of a longer, still-classified version of the US national security strategy released last week. There are also suggestions of creating a new elite C5, or Core Five, forum of world powers to sideline the G7, comprising America, China, India, Japan and Russia. The four EU countries seen as targets to follow Brexit are Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland, according to leaked details reported by the US defence website Defense One. The classified version of the strategy, which warned of 'civilisational erasure' in Europe because of mass immigration and multiculturalism, is believed to call for the US to 'support parties, movements, and intellectual and cultural figures who seek sovereignty and preservation/restoration of traditional European ways of life … while remaining pro-American.'" 

 From "Leaked files ‘show US wants to persuade four nations to leave EU’ The countries seen as targets to follow Brexit are Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland, according to leaked details of the US national security strategy" (London Times).

Jasmine Crockett hits the ground running.

 

That's one of the best political ads I've ever seen. This video is excellent too:

"He describes how — in his view — his ex-wife weaponised gender medicine to cut him out of his daughter’s life..."

"... how his daughter went from being sectioned for anorexia to being affirmed in her trans identity by all the adults in her life except him, how she was given a prescription for testosterone after one online session with a counsellor, and how this was injected by her local NHS GP with no blood tests or clinical evaluation.... J was diagnosed with autism aged 13. At 14 she was sectioned because she had become severely malnourished.... Before she was sectioned, J had told her parents that she was a lesbian, and then she and her best friend said that they were in fact boys in a gay relationship. 'These are two autistic girls who were ostracised in school,' says [the father]. After J came out of hospital, she ate nothing for a week. Then her mother made a deal with her: if you start eating, I will let you take the gender drugs.... He remembers the last time he saw her.... 'When she said goodbye, her smile was the same girly shy smile she had as a little girl. Somewhere in there is my daughter.'"

From "Father’s anger at girl’s potentially fatal testosterone dose/The child, who was 15 at the time, was given the prescription by the private GenderGP clinic after one online counselling session" (London Times).

To be "sectioned" is to be forced into hospitalization.

"María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this week... dodged a reporter’s question about her views on the threat of U.S. military action in Venezuela."

"But she repeated the Trump administration’s talking points on Mr. Maduro’s government, comparing him to a criminal mastermind engaged in a vast array of illegal activities in partnership with America’s adversaries. 'Venezuela has already been invaded,' she said. 'We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels.'... In response to questions about the seizure of the oil tanker, Ms. Machado said that she supported cutting the funds of Mr. Maduro’s government. She added that he finances himself with gold smuggling, human trafficking, drugs and illegal oil sales...."

From "Nobel Peace Prize Winner Machado Vows to End Maduro’s Rule in Venezuela/María Corina Machado reappeared on the global stage as the Trump administration ramped up its pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro" (NYT).

ADDED: I'm reading "How Nobel peace prize winner María Machado fled Venezuela, in a wig/The Venezuelan opposition leader took great risks to reach Norway, where her daughter had accepted the prize, making a surprise appearance hours later" (London Times): "... Machado left her safe house in the Caracas suburbs on Monday night, wearing a wig and a disguise.... [and] embarked on a ten-hour journey through ten military checkpoints before reaching the coast by midnight. After resting for a few hours at a coastal fishing village, she and two others set out at 5am on a traditional wooden skiff — a small lightweight fishing boat with a shallow bottom, designed to be used near shore — and made the 35-mile trip across the Caribbean Sea to Curaçao, an island nation within the kingdom of the Netherlands. Strong winds and choppy seas delayed her crossing.... [A] source said that the Machado escape team alerted the US government 'so that they would not blow up the boat.' The opposition leader has been a vocal supporter of the Trump administration’s increased military presence in the area...."

AND: The NYT quotes Machado: "I believe that President Trump’s actions have been decisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever. You need to raise the cost of staying in power and lower the cost of leaving power. Only when you do that, this regime will break down. And that’s where we’re moving toward right now."

In the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want... except the seizing of the oil tanker. There's a new post, just up, for that. All other topics are fine.

"As you probably know, we’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela. A large tanker, very large. Largest one ever seized, actually, and other things are happening. It was seized for a very good reason."

Said President Trump.

Quoted in "U.S. Seizes Oil Tanker Off Venezuelan Coast, Trump Says/The seizure comes as the United States builds up its forces in the Caribbean as part of a pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela" (NYT).

"I love the Gen Z’s. I love their attitude. They think the world is in a bad place and that we’ve got to make it better."

"That’s their thing. They’re into making things better. I’m a Gen Z, too. I moved to New York from Detroit at 24, and I’m still 24 in my head, so they’re my people. The Gen Z’s only like talking to people their own age, and since they can tell I’m like them, they talk to me. If someone looks over 30, I don’t even interview them.... I never know who these people are. I don’t read the newspaper or follow the news. I cry when I read the news, so why would I? But I don’t get star-struck. Back in the 1970s, I met every celebrity there ever was at Studio 54, where I was a house photographer, so I don’t get star-struck."

Said Judi Jupiter, quoted in "Judi Jupiter, a 76-Year-Old Social Media Star, Is Gen Z at Heart/In the 1970s, she photographed Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry on wild nights at Studio 54. Now she’s chronicling a new generation" (NYT)(that's a gift link, because there are a lot of photos).

And here's her Instagram, so you can check out the videography.

That one quote really struck me: "I don’t read the newspaper or follow the news. I cry when I read the news, so why would I?" It's a good question. You do not have to read the news. You can abstain.

And by the way, you don't have to answer when people prod you to reveal your politics.