Sunrise — 6:23, 6:54.

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"With subtitles on, I find myself being able to quickly gather what one character has said, look down at my phone, react to a message..."

"... then look up before that character has even finished their line. The viewing experience thus becomes multifaceted and efficient. The subtitles allow us to go on our phone but still absorb the content and gist of the TV show....  And social media itself has encouraged the use of subtitles across the board. It is now a given that most creators add text captions to their videos – without the option to turn them off.... This isn’t simply a trend but a feature anchored in the algorithm itself. Text captions, rather than dialogue, encourage the video to crop up in the TikTok search engine.... It began as an accessibility improvement, but the rapidity with which it has caught on suggests it’s business-oriented and crucial to getting that sweet algorithm boost. The fact that 85% of social media visual content is now watched on mute... coupled with the ease with which AI can generate subtitles without the need for human transcription, means we’re living in a subtitled world – one that is often poorly translated, low-quality and error-ridden...."

Writes Isabel Brooks, in "Most of gen Z watch TV with the subtitles on – and I understand why" (The Guardian).

"I don’t think that … any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel.... And I do give perspective to the precedent. But… the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition..."

"... and our country and our laws, and be based on something – not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.... I think we should demand that, no matter what the case is, that it has more than just a simple theoretical basis.... [If it’s] totally stupid, and that’s what they’ve decided, you don’t go along with it just because it’s decided."

Said Clarence Thomas, quoted in "Clarence Thomas says precedent might not determine cases on upcoming supreme court docket/The court is expected to weigh in next session on same-sex marriage, which it legalized in 2015" (The Guardian).

I picture him gesturing at the shelves of case reports and scoffing These are full of things somebody dreamt up and others just went along with.

That calls an old anecdote up in my mind — a distant memory. What was it? Who was the judge? I'm seeing that it was Learned Hand, the famous 2d Circuit judge. He supposedly said: "The reports are full of cases that were wrongly decided, and the only way to avoid making a fool of yourself is to be humble about it."

"Trump’s brand of politics feeds on the lie that multicultural cities are frightening and chaotic. If he follows through on his threats to deploy National Guard troops..."

"... to Portland, it won’t be for the benefit of the people who call the city home. The intent will be to incite a spectacle of chaos, manufacturing a crisis to retroactively justify the belief that Democrat-run cities are in need of forceful takeover. The provocation will be the point. Don’t fall for it. The Portland of right-wing imagination is a city engulfed by flames and violence, a vivid warning of what will befall other places if they vote for Democrats. 'Unimaginably bad things would happen to America' if Biden were elected, Trump posted in 2020, specifically citing the 'anarchy' of Portland.... The reality is that the problems facing Portland and other cities are nothing that can’t be addressed through normal governance, and that these are on the whole vibrant and quite pleasant places to live. 'Real America' can mean things like biking to get a vegan ube latte from a purple-haired barista, and if you’d like a taste of what makes America truly great, you can find it in a coffee shop—in Portland, certainly, and probably a short ride from where you live."

Writes Jacob Grier, in "100 Cups of Coffee in a City on Fire/President Trump keeps saying Portland is an anarchic hellscape in need of the National Guard. With the help of my bike and a serious caffeine addiction, I set out to discover the truth" (Slate).

It's nice to hear progressives paying respect to the virtues of federalism.

And what's ube? It's just hair-colored yam, I mean, purple yam. I take it you just buy the yam extract — commission earned — and mix it into your milky — vegan milky — coffee.

"What is Demthink? It’s what you’d end up with if you trained a large language model solely on the inner monologue of people who..."

"... either work in Democratic politics or watch MSNBC for eight hours a day.... The problem with Demthink is not merely that it tends toward cynical triangulation. No, it’s that it tends toward triangulation that isn’t even politically effective because it’s so finely tuned for the in-group that it comes across as uncannily out-of-tune to everyone else."

Writes Nate Silver, purporting to read the collective mind of Democrats, in "Is America ready for a gay president? Kamala Harris and a subscriber have questions about Mayor Pete, and I have annoyingly nuanced answers."

I've already blogged about what Harris said in her book about not picking Pete for VP — here, 10 days ago — and I don't want to redo that. I'm blogging Silver's piece because of the idea of "Demthink" and I liked these examples of how wrong it can go:

"The MAHA movement’s war on glyphosate is part of a broader war on modern farming... It reflects a fantasy of agricultural purity..."

"... where less intensive food production can heal the land and reverse climate change, even though less intensive farms that make less food per acre need more acres and more deforestation to make the same amount of food. Many liberals repulsed by Mr. Kennedy’s unscientific bias against vaccines and Tylenol share his unscientific bias against agri-chemicals, genetically modified organisms and industrial agriculture.... This is a scientific truism that MAHA misses: The dose makes the poison. You shouldn’t swallow an entire bottle of Tylenol, but it’s a safe product, and it would take a higher dose of glyphosate than Tylenol to kill someone. Some rats might — might! — have gotten sick from ingesting glyphosate, but the proportion of it in their diets was almost certainly thousands and maybe millions of times higher than the proportion in yours. In any case, it’s much less damaging than the alternatives...."

From "Spraying Roundup on Crops Is Fine. Really" (NYT).

There's an interesting political reshuffling going on here. I think there are a lot of people who are devoted to the improvement of American food who are going to feel slighted by the accusation that they're caught in a "fantasy of agricultural purity" and too dumb to understand the old saw "The dose makes the poison." Don't focus on what may have happened to some rats. Let the scientists balance the good and the bad and tell you the conclusion: Roundup is fine. Now, shut up and resume microdosing. 

This is another way Democrats can drive its natural constituents into the arms of Republicans. They could have had Kennedy on their side. They didn't want him. 

"If Congress fails to fund the government next week, the White House is preparing for a shutdown that would reflect the purest version of President Donald Trump’s vision for the federal government..."

"... guided by White House budget director Russell Vought, an architect of the controversial Project 2025 playbook for Trump’s second term. Federal funds expire when the fiscal year ends Tuesday night, and Congress appears deadlocked over a stopgap measure that would keep agencies online for seven weeks while long-term negotiations continue. Under the Vought plan, the only agencies that would remain operating apace are those that received money in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, the $4.1 trillion tax and immigration package that Congress passed in July. The Defense and Homeland Security departments were the main beneficiaries.The result, both during and potentially after a shutdown, could be a federal government dramatically reoriented to defense, immigration and law enforcement — and not much else...."

I'm reading "Trump’s shutdown plans: Mass layoffs, deregulation, military deployments/The White House’s call for mass layoffs in a looming shutdown tracks with past administration efforts to defang much of the federal government" (WaPo)(gift link).

Is this something like a return to DOGE? DOGE had "Musk’s high-visibility 'move fast and break things' ethos. But Vought, people in and around the administration say, has been quietly potent, drawing on four years out of government to surgically plan measures that overhaul the executive branch and Trump’s power."

So Vought is low-visibility, move slow, and wait for Congress to break everything, then put it together in the way you've been quietly calculating for decades. 

Sunrise — 6:26, 6:57, 6:58, 6:58.

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"Donald Trump was maliciously prosecuted repeatedly—from the New York state level by Letitia James to the federal level by Jack Smith—over and over, on the basis of manipulated charges."

"These were stretched charges, charges that were literally read in unique ways for the first time in order to go after him. So should you be surprised that Donald Trump is now doing this to the people he believes targeted him in the first place? He promised this was going to happen. It’s not exactly a shock. It is the reality that these methods were used against him. Now, the thing about Trump that frustrates so many people on the left is that he’s not genteel about doing this sort of stuff. Joe Biden would lie."

Said Ben Shapiro on his podcast yesterday.

"Today I’m releasing those false narratives, the parts of me that were never actually parts of me."

"I’m letting go of the body that was sexualized, that was abused, that I believed was necessary for me to be attractive; to be loved; to be successful; to be happy.... Today I am loved, I am feminine, I am attractive, and I am successful. None of that is because of my implants. I will still be all of those things when I wake up and they are gone. There is so much and joy in that knowledge and freedom in letting go of what was never me in the first place. Today, I’m my authentic self. Today, I’m free."

Said Alyssa Milano, quoted in "Alyssa Milano removes her breast implants: 'Letting go of the body that was sexualized and abused'"(NY Post).

"The New York Times reviewed more than four dozen of Mr. Kirk’s debates, stretching back to 2017, and discussed them with four debate coaches and university professors."

"The Times review — which examined content, tone, techniques and other hallmarks of each confrontation — reveals how Mr. Kirk used the debate format to deliver a consistent hard-line message while orchestrating highly shareable moments...."

I'm reading "The Debate Style That Propelled Charlie Kirk’s Movement" and I'm using my last gift link of the month so you can see the analysis, the many examples, and the video clips.

Key attributes of Kirk's debate style, as perceived by the experts:

"Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine?"/"Cleopatra, of course."

"I was 15 when I read “Antony and Cleopatra.” I desperately wished for a gorgeous general who was willing to die for me and say, as he’s dying, 'I am dying, Egypt, dying.' I’ve always wanted a lover who would consider me an entire country.

A question to and answer from Rabih Alameddine, in "Rabih Alameddine Is Done With Dostoyevsky/Then: His favorite writer. Now: 'So earnest, so didactic, so humorless.' His own new novel is 'The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)'" (NYT).

Speaking of wanting to be considered an entire country, I also liked "My queen-size bed is divided into quadrants; I sleep in one, my two cats get one each, and one is for books."

"The critics of Christian nationalism sometimes argue that it is a political movement using the language and symbols of religion in order to win elections."

"But the events of the past week have proved that this is a genuinely religious movement and Charlie Kirk was a genuinely religious man. The problem is that unrestrained faith and unrestrained partisanship are an incredibly combustible mixture. I am one of those who fear that the powerful emotions kicked up by the martyrdom of Kirk will lead many Republicans to conclude that their opponents are irredeemably evil and that anything that causes them suffering is permissible. It’s possible for faithful people to wander a long way from the cross."

Writes David Brooks, in "We Need to Think Straight About God and Politics" (NYT).

Charlie Kirk was a genuinely religious man... but Charlie Kirk is the one who was killed. He is no longer alive in this world and capable of acting or speaking to us. He is now as usable as political people want him to be. 

Brooks speaks of the danger that "many Republicans" will use Kirk to establish that "their opponents are irredeemably evil and that anything that causes them suffering is permissible." I suppose anything is possible, but I would think that Christians are the last to call other people "irredeemable." And it seems to be the left who have been falling prey to the ideation that their opponents are "irredeemably evil." Maybe what you fear in others is the very thing you yourself tend to do.

"It’s meant to be an eyeball-to-eyeball kind of conversation. He wants to see the generals."

Said an unnamed person who, we're assured, knows what he's talking about.

Quoted in "New details emerge on Hegseth’s unusual mass gathering of top brass/The defense secretary is expected to lecture about the 'warrior ethos' for less than an hour, according to multiple people familiar with the event. But top generals are bracing for possible firings or demotions" (WaPo).

Some Pentagon officials questioned the wisdom of launching a relatively large gathering on short notice to hear Hegseth speak for a matter of minutes, and bristled at the idea that long-serving military leaders — a segment of whom spent years in combat earlier in their careers — needed instruction on how to fight. 

“They don’t need a talk from Secretary Hegseth on the warrior ethos,” a defense official said.... 

“Warrior ethos” across the services can have different meanings, but in general it refers to professional dedication to fighting and winning wars. It is a regular focus of Hegseth, a former National Guard infantry officer, who has also rhetorically championed a “return to lethality.”... 

The in-person nature of the meeting has generated frustration as hundreds of senior officers and their staff prepare to fly in on either commercial or military aircraft, and book lodging and transportation to be in the audience for Hegseth’s remarks early Tuesday....

Frustration at the difficulty of travel arrangements — does that sound like the warrior ethos? I don't know. I'm not a general, but I assume that part of war-fighting is transporting members of the military effectively across the face of the earth. And not complaining about it, just getting it done.

"It’s very easy to get caught up in fruitarianism because when you start out, you feel euphoric. You’re eating a lot, but you’re not gaining weight."

"Your digestion is perfect, you feel light, you have more energy than ever. You can’t understand why other people wouldn’t want to feel like that all the time."

Said Emilia, a former fruitarian, quoted in "Why Karolina Went to Bali/She struggled with an eating disorder for years. When she discovered raw veganism, she thought she’d found the answer" (The Cut).

The raw vegans I spoke to didn’t see any connection between fruitarianism and disordered eating. Karolina didn’t die from solely eating fruit for the last seven years of her life — she died, they argue, because she had essentially lost her will to live. Karolina could have recovered from her eating disorder while still on a purely fruitarian diet, they say, if only she had adopted a more positive mind-set. “It’s sad a lot of people would blame the diet,” says Zaia. “They’d say, ‘Oh, all she ate was fruit.’ But this was someone who ate one fruit a day and was really hating herself and just barely getting by. It really has nothing to do with the fact that she was fruitarian.”

And I had to look at this crazy ad juxtaposition — a sickly looking skeletal Tilda Swinton presumably smelling like something you'd want to buy:

Sunrise — 6:53, 6:54, 6:57, 6:59.

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Andrzej Bargiel took 4 days to ascend Mount Everest from base camp and then 2 days to ski down.

I'm reading "Polish Skier Climbs Everest and Skis Down Without Extra Oxygen/Andrzej Bargiel, 37, became the first person to complete the feat" (NYT).

In the videos, Mr. Bargiel is... seen peacefully gliding through pristine snow, almost as if he were a recreational skier.... But he is also seen navigating tricky and dangerous situations, like narrow ridges, nearly sheer mountain faces and drop-offs.... The most dangerous part of the journey came near the end, Mr. Bargiel’s team said, at the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, not far above base camp. The team described him “navigating a labyrinth of shifting ice and deep crevasses — without ropes or fixed lines.”... Despite his exertions, Mr. Bargiel reported: “I came back safe and strong. I’m healthy, fit and happy.”

"It didn’t have its spark. It didn’t have its distinctive definition in the lines, in the swirls. It just lost — it just lost its oomph...."

"You take the Twombly. I mean, to some people it just looks like fifth grade scribbles. To me it looks like a symphony orchestra."

Said Ronald Perelman, quoted in "Judge Rejects Ronald Perelman’s Claim That His Art Had Lost Its ‘Oomph’/The collector’s holding companies had sued his insurers for $400 million to cover paintings that they say had been damaged in a fire. The insurers said they had survived untouched" (NYT).

The OED traces "oomph" — "The quality of being exciting, energetic, or sexually attractive; energy, vigour" — back to 1937: "With actors, the 'it' quality has to do with their visual personality—sex appeal, magnetism, or whatever you care to call it. Back of the camera, we refer to the ingredient as 'umphh.'" The etymology is "An imitative or expressive formation." I presume what it is imitative of is sexual intercourse.

Meanwhile, you know Cy Twombly — pencil-scribbly things like this:

If the collector sensed oomph and the oomph is now gone — it's like the spark gone out of a love affair — how can he convey his anguish to the judge? His anguish, if any. Who's to believe it ever existed? How can you insure something so ineffable?

"Hughes’s libretto is full of smart, Maga-bashing one-liners, dodgy rhymes and contrived but nevertheless funny exchanges that (possibly) hold a mirror up to the weird actualite of family life in Trumpland."

"At one point we learn that the president has mistaken Melania’s body-double for his wife — with predictable consequences. The comedy isn’t subtle, but neither is its target."

From "Melania the Opera review — a sweary, funny first lady faces the music/The year is 2027 and Russia invades Slovenia: what would Melania do? The composer Jeremy Limb and singer Melinda Hughes dive into Trumpland in a smart, Maga-bashing piece" (London Times).

Is "actualite" a typo (for "actuality") or is the Times using the word the OED spells "actualité" (with an accent on the "e")? That word is defined as "An event from real life, a news item; (in plural) news, current affairs. Also: a work representing or recording such an event."

Among the quotes, from 1859, "the subject of her Saintship is not a matter of mere historical interest, but aspires to the dignity of an 'actualité.'"

"Assata Shakur, the Black revolutionary once known as JoAnne Chesimard... died on Thursday in Havana. She was 78...."

"Assata Shakur was both lionized and demonized long after she and the Black Liberation Army, the militant group she had embraced, faded from broad public consciousness. To supporters she was a tireless battler against racial oppression. To detractors she was a stone-cold cop killer, the first woman to land on the F.B.I.’s 'most wanted terrorists' list, with $2 million in state and federal money offered for her capture. For her part, Ms. Shakur regarded herself as 'a 20th-century escaped slave.'..."

From "Assata Shakur Dies at 78; Convicted Revolutionary Found Refuge in Cuba/A member of a militant Black group, she was found guilty in the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper, escaped from prison and fled to Cuba, where she taught and wrote" (NYT).

"I can’t forgive them, they tried to hurt you"/"We can’t do this, we should stay safe, you’re not safe.”

Donald Trump and Melania Trump, each protective of the other, according to lipreaders quoted in "Trump and Melania’s finger-waving ‘spat’ was actually prez raving about UN escalator snafu: lip readers" (NY Post).

"In the two weeks since Kirk’s killing, pastors across the country have reported a spike in attendance usually reserved for Christmas or Easter."

"Social media has been filled with testimonies from young people turning to Christianity for the first time, with even atheists saying they are reconsidering their position on religion. Pastors have coined a term for the religious revival galvanised by Kirk’s death: the Charlie effect.... In Irvine, California, a 20-year-old student named Bryce Bohorquez filmed the overfilled parking lots outside Oceans Church, where he is a longstanding member. 'Charlie Kirk, look what you did. No parking. Everyone wants to come now. Amen,' Bohorquez said in the video, which has been viewed more than three million times...."

From "The Charlie effect: how a political murder sparked a religious awakening/The shooting of Charlie Kirk has led to a wave of Christian fervour across social media. Even atheists claim to have been converted" in the London Times.

By the way, look at this insane and distracting distracting ad the London Times had right in the center of the page, right after the words "God's way of reminding us to live for him":

Live for him... indeed.

"What drove you to want to try to assassinate President Ford?"/"Well, everybody asks that. And the thing is that everybody was talking about it."

"They say, 'Where did you get the idea?' I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in San Francisco people were saying this all the time. Number one, we elect our presidents. We don’t appoint them. And Gerald Ford was appointed — and he was appointed by a crook, if you will pardon the expression. So it wasn’t a unique feeling. It was partly that there were other people who had talked about it, who I thought were much more important to what we were thinking of as a revolution, and we really, truly thought there was going to be one. And I thought somebody like me — I was a nobody — it would be better coming from somebody like me and not destroying these people I thought were leaders. If they did this, it would destroy their leadership."

Said Sara Jane Moore, who was sentenced to life in prison but was out on parole and talking to CNN in 2015.

I'm blogging about Sara Jane Moore not because her reason for trying to assassinate Gerald Ford is chillingly resonant today: She got the idea from the way everybody was talking about it.

I'm blogging about her because I see her obituary in the NYT: "Sara Jane Moore, Would-Be Assassin of President Ford, Dies at 95/A mother of four on the fringes of radical leftist movements, she fired at the president outside a San Francisco hotel in 1975. She had hoped to spark a revolution, she said."

And here's a bit of Sara Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme in the Stephen Sondheim musical "Assassins":

"Whether you like Corrupt James Comey or not, and I can’t imagine too many people liking him, HE LIED!"

"It is not a complex lie, it’s a very simple, but IMPORTANT one. There is no way he can explain his way out of it. He is a Dirty Cop, and always has been, but he was just assigned a Crooked Joe Biden appointed Judge, so he’s off to a very good start. Nevertheless, words are words, and he wasn’t hedging or in dispute. He was very positive, there was no doubt in his mind about what he said, or meant by saying it. He left himself ZERO margin of error on a big and important answer to a question. He just got unexpectedly caught. James 'Dirty Cop' Comey was a destroyer of lives. He knew exactly what he was saying, and that it was a very serious and far reaching lie for which a very big price must be paid!"

Signed, "President DJT," on Truth Social, this morning.

What, precisely, is the supposedly simple statement Comey made and why is it supposedly now utterly clear that it was not only wrong but a lie?

The "simple" statement is actually an elaborate back-and-forth with Ted Cruz at a Senate hearing on  September 30, 2020:

There should be somber professionalism around the wielding of criminal law...

Cool shell formation found on beach walk pic.twitter.com/VuouLGFG0m

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2025

... but it was Comey who, last May, Instagrammed a photo — with shells in the sand in the form of "8647" — and the cavalier caption "Cool shell formation on my beach walk."

At the time, Trump said: "He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination."

Sunrise — 6:23, 6:47, 6:50.

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Comey indicted!

 The NYT reports.

"The survey of 1,019 American adults, which was conducted between September 19-21, found that the public trusts Republicans’ plan..."

"... to address crime to the Democrats’ by 20 points (40%-20%), on immigration by 18 points (40%-22%), on foreign conflicts by 12 points (35%-23%), on the economy by 10 points (34%-24%), and on gun control (32%-28%) and political extremism (30%-26%) by four points. Democrats, on the other hand, are better trusted on the environment (37%-23%), women’s rights (38%-25%), healthcare (34%-25%), and respect for democracy (31%-29%)."

From "Republicans Mop the Floor With Democrats on the Economy and Immigration in Stunning New Poll" (Mediaite).

"There is a reason the world’s gardens are full of benches that nobody ever sits on."

"We aren’t built for leisure or built to relax. Rather, we are built to strive. We still need fulfilling work. The only difference, in retirement, is that we don’t have to worry so much about whether that work comes with a paycheck."

Wrote Jonathan Clements, quoted in "Five Pearls of Wisdom From a Legend of Financial Writing/Jonathan Clements, the longtime Wall Street Journal columnist, died this weekend. Here are some of his best ideas" (NYT).

Speaking of finance, I was just reading: "It was only last summer that women declared they were looking for a man in finance, 6-5, blue eyes. The goal posts appear to have shifted since then. Now, some social media users are extolling the virtues — with varying degrees of sincerity — of settling for a partner to whom they’re not initially attracted. Such a person, the thinking goes, will ultimately treat you better than someone who is more obviously desirable."

That's in "'Shrekking? Intelligence Gaps? When Did We Get So Cruel to Our Lovers? Social media users have coined new, even meaner terms for 'dating down'" (NYT).

"meh - candidate for worst puzzle of the year"/"perhaps worst of the decade!"

Comments at the NYT column about today's crossword, which wasn't that hard, but was rather annoying for those of us who like to — semi-spoiler — see what we are doing.

"Driven by the belief that liberal tech and media companies have unfairly silenced viewpoints on the right, [Brendan] Carr is working to transform the F.C.C. from a once sleepy agency..."

"... best known for licensing local TV stations and expanding 5G cellular networks into a protector of conservative speech.... Mr. Carr, who became the F.C.C. chairman in January, has argued in recent days that he has been a consistent champion of the First Amendment and said he was helping protect free speech by weighing in on local TV programming decisions that no longer serve the public interest.... Much of the F.C.C.’s power lies in its control over licenses for stations that lease access to airwaves. A license holder is 'required by law to operate its station in the "public interest, convenience and necessity,"' according to the agency, which has rarely revoked licenses.... '[Local broadcasters] have something special that distinguishes them from lots of other speakers, which is that they have this right to use the federal spectrum, which is a scarce resource,' Mr. Carr said at the public meeting. 'For a lot of years, the F.C.C. walked away from enforcing that public interest obligation.'"

I'm reading "Brendan Carr Plans to Keep Going After the Media/While 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' returned to ABC on Tuesday, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has promised to continue his campaign against what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts" (NYT).

I don't trust Carr's judgment (or his ability to articulate the scope of the FCC's power), but I wish his critics would be meticulous about the broadcast media context and the "public interest" limitation imposed on licensees.

Why was this allowed to happen?

19-year-old Violet Affleck gives a mask-muffled harangue at the U.N.

From the New York Post editorial about it: "At the UN’s Healthy Indoor Air session Tuesday, Violet Affleck — just 19 and with no qualification beyond being the daughter of actors Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner — railed about the dangers of airborne viruses and the importance of mask mandates amid the 'ongoing pandemic.' 'Adults,' she huffed (through a KN95 mask), are 'ignoring, downplaying and concealing both the prevalence of airborne transmission and the threat of Long COVID.'"

Yes, adults are reckless and dimwitted about a lot of things, but the obvious one here is that teenagers, especially ones who seem hysterical, should not be put in the public spotlight. You might think your little girl is the new Greta Thunberg, but keep it to yourself. Don't push her out onto the stage to emote in the "How dare you!" mode.

And if the left wants some kind of "believe the science" high ground, don't keep sending children and teenagers out to lecture us. 

"A public toilet neutralizes and suspends the dualism between … what remains private and what is meant to be shared."

Wrote Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele in the notes for the Fall 2025 Runway Show, which had a set with "red toilet stalls, where models changed in and out of gender-fluid looks."

Quoted in "The Next Big Thing in Pop Culture: Public Bathrooms/In fashion, film and beyond, restrooms have become sites of creative inspiration" (NYT).

The NYT instructs us to think of a public bathrooms as "an apt setting for art exploring identity, the body and discretion"... which is so not what I'm looking for in a public bathroom. Ah, but I'm talking about basic human needs, not art. Art is supposed to challenge you and to upset you, if you are bourgeois.

"Now and again I would feel a bit of relief when I realised, to my mind, that it wasn’t a good book and I would stop reading."

"But [then it would] happen twice in a row and I started to feel a bit low because this is not what I have signed up for. I want to read good books."

Said Roddy Doyle, author of the Booker Prize-winning "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," quoted in "Booker prize chairman laments poor quality of entries/A former prizewinner heading this year’s jury said many of the 153 novels submitted were not worth discussing as judges whittled down the list to six contenders" (London Times).

There are regularly more than 150 “literary fiction” titles in contention for the prize. New novels by all previously shortlisted authors are entered automatically, and some publishing houses are allowed several entries each depending on previous success.... 

Doyle said the number of books they all had to read was "daunting." He said that such were his reading responsibilities, one day he recorded only 17 steps on his pedometer "and it took eight steps to the kettle from where I was sitting."

That's why I consume my "literary fiction" in the form of audiobooks, but I guess Roddy Doyle is too virtuous to take shortcuts. And yet he does take the most obvious shortcut and stop reading at the point when he realizes — "realises" — that he's reading a book that hasn't got a shot. I guess it's annoying to see so many bad books presented to him as in contention for the prize. Depressing even, especially if you're not getting your usual walks.

So is it to be all about the plinth?

That's the last line of the previous post, the one about the possibly oversized statue of Trump and Epstein, which got toppled yesterday. (I thought statue-toppling was the signature of the left, but apparently not.)

I got the feeling plinths have loomed large enough in the archive of this blog to want to prompt Grok to review all my plinth-related posts and to structure the material for me to write a long essay — or book! — about the last 21-years of notable plinths. Giving this post my "unwritten books" tag, I will reprint Grok's outline of my long years of plinth observation [below the jump].

ADDED: I was able to find all the relevant posts. I had a distinctive search word, "plinth." Grok was able to summarize all the posts individually. That wasn't too helpful, because the posts were relatively short, and I wrote them, so I'd rather rely on my own writing that to decipher the machine's paraphrasings. But Grok did not discover any mysterious interconnections among the various plinth-related incidents — plinthcidents, if you will. 

If it wasn't viewpoint discrimination but actually some violation of the terms of the permit, I think they would have articulated the violation...

... so that we wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it's viewpoint discrimination. But with the failure to to articulate the violation, I think we are entitled to presume it was viewpoint discrimination. No jumping required.

That's my response to "Park Service removes statue of Trump and Epstein from National Mall/The statue, the latest installation by an anonymous group of artists critical of the president, was supposed to be on display until 8 p.m. Sunday" (WaPo)(gift link):

The National Park Service removed a statue of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands from the National Mall early Wednesday morning, a day after it was placed there. 'The statue was removed because it was not compliant with the permit issued," Interior Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Peace said in an email. She did not respond to follow-up questions about how or why the statue was not in compliance or if the department had provided the required 24-hour written notice before revoking the permit....

Carol Flaisher, a D.C.-based location manager, filed the permit application with the National Park Service on behalf of the artists who created the statue. She said that in over 40 years of working with the Park Service arranging installations and filming, she has never had a permit revoked.

The permit issued to Flaisher says: “Superintendent may revoke this permit at any time after providing 24 hours’ written notice to the Permittee setting forth the reasons for the revocation.”

Yeah, it's a stupid statue. But now the stupidity of the government has turned it into a monument to freedom.

ADDED: Reading more of the article, I see: "In a video of the statue’s removal provided to The Washington Post, a National Park Service official can be seen saying that the installation is 'out of compliance' because it is several feet larger than stated in the permit. The video was taken by a security team member who had been assigned to monitor the statue as required by the permit."

If that's the answer, why didn't Interior Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Peace put that in her original email response to The Washington Post? Why did she not respond to the follow-up questions if there is such an easy answer? If she cared about the First Amendment or if this really was the true answer, why wasn't she eager to provide it?

I see that "Flaisher said there was a height discrepancy because the base of the statue was not included in the permit approval. But she said no objections were raised when the statue was placed on the Mall, and she was never informed there was an issue."

So is it to be all about the plinth?

Sunrise — 6:22, 7:09.

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"On bad days, Ms. Martinez said, the pain is 'unbearable.' So she was confused and upset on Monday when President Trump encouraged pregnant women to 'tough it out'..."

"... without Tylenol. He claimed that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, could be a cause of autism, even though doctors say it is safe in moderation. Ms. Martinez immediately contacted her doctor, asking whether she should continue taking pain medication. After hearing that it was OK, she still called her mother in tears, overwhelmed by the fear of being blamed for whatever might go wrong.... In interviews with pregnant women and doctors, they described how Mr. Trump’s announcement added a new wrinkle of worry. As it is, pregnant women do not need to look very far for advice and admonishment; it comes from all directions, even from strangers on the street...."

From "A President’s ‘Surreal’ Advice Worries Pregnant Women/The administration’s guidance to avoid Tylenol and 'tough it out' prompted anxiety, especially for expectant women who face pain" (NYT).

One reason to avoid having children is the fear that you'll do something wrong or — like that mother in tears — the fear that other people will think you did something wrong. Why complicate your life with such things? The babies themselves may grow up into beings who tell you you've done it wrong. Thank God some women dare to have children. But what are the rest of us to do — we who feel called to protect children? Only Ms. Martinez knows how bad her pain is and how much Tylenol might help. Who but she should decide if it's worth the risk to take Tylenol after the President has cast aspersions upon it?

By the way, here's an interesting episode of the "Modern Wisdom" podcast: "Why Population Collapse is Closer Than You Think."

"From what I understand about the cat, it was one of his best... [It] took a love bite and happened to catch the wrong spot.... It was almost an act of God — some unforeseen thing."

Said the father of Ryan Easley, quoted in "Tiger Handler Linked to Joe Exotic Is Fatally Mauled by Tiger/Ryan Easley, 37, was performing at his family-run private zoo in Hugo, Okla., when a tiger attacked him, the authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the scene" (NYT).

Joe Exotic commented: "No one can blame the tiger for what happened. We all take risk in what we do and we don’t need further laws to ban tigers because of this because you can get killed doing just about anything."

"Calling for civility is about exerting power. It is a way of reminding the powerless that they exist at the will of those in power and should act accordingly."

"It is a demand for control. Civility is wielded as a cudgel to further clarify the differences between 'us' and 'them.' It is the demand of people with thin skin who don’t want their delicate egos and impoverished ideas challenged. And it is a tool of fearful leaders, clinging to power with desperate, sweaty hands, thrilled at the ways they are forcing people, corporations and even other nations to bend to their will but terrified at what will happen when it all slips away.... I keep wondering when we will reach a cultural breaking point, when finally, the Trump administration will go far enough to shove us out of the comforts of our day-to-day lives.... The onus is on all of us to reject the fantasy of civility in favor of repair. This country is broken, but that need not be permanent."

Writes Roxane Gay, in "Civility Is a Fantasy" (NYT)(gift link).

"After all, if your employer allowed you to wear open-toe shoes, it would have to allow everyone to wear open-toe shoes, and when it comes to toes, our ideas of what is acceptable tend to vary according to gender."

"'Culturally we’re more accepting of women showing a bit of skin, whether cleavage on top or at the toes,' [said Susan Scafidi, the founder of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University]. 'And "mandals" have never read as business attire in the U.S.' Put another way: Your peep-toe pumps may be a casualty of his fisherman sandal."

I'm reading "What Is a ‘Work-Appropriate’ Shoe? Workplace dress codes can be frustratingly vague. Our critic has some guidance on navigating different interpretations and on picking your footwear" (NYT).

Is that really the law? Can't you require men to wear jackets and ties without requiring women to wear jackets and ties? 

I am reminded of my post from August 2010, "Can lady lawyers wear peep-toe shoes?" 

"While it’s unclear what in The Savant read as objectionable to Apple’s decision-makers, its delay is emblematic of the heightened caution and scrutiny Hollywood feels as it navigates the Trump administration’s media ecosystem."

From "Apple Pulls The Savant From Its Release Schedule" (Vulture).

Here's the trailer, full of pulsating anxiety about extremist violence about to reach the nicest residents of American suburbia:

Claudia Cardinale.

1938-2025.

"I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now..."

"... because his audience is GONE, and his 'talent' was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings."

Writes Donald Trump, at Truth Social.

It's hard to believe the President of the United States writes things like that and publishes them, but this is where we are.

MEANWHILE:

Go to 5:42 for the part about Ted Cruz. Go to 6:34 for the denial of any "intention to make light of the murder of a young man."

"Secret Service to investigate whether Trump was sabotaged by UN staff/First the escalator broke down when Melania Trump stepped on it..."

"... then the president’s teleprompter stopped working. Were the glitches intentional acts of protest?"

That's the headline at the London Times.

The investigation comes after The Sunday Times reported that UN workers joked about turning off an escalator before the general assembly meeting. On Tuesday, an escalator broke down as Melania Trump, the first lady, stepped onto it.

It was one of several glitches that raised suspicions about whether Trump was targeted by people inside the institution he has so strongly criticised.

From that internal link, which goes to a Times article published 2 days before Trump's visit: "To mark Trump’s arrival, UN staff members have joked that they may turn off the escalators and elevators and simply tell him they ran out of money, so he has to walk up the stairs."

At least the inside job (if any) is at the clown show level. 

Sunrise — 6:22, 6:44.

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Trump ended his U.N. speech today with rhetoric that tracked his American rallies — envisioning the whole world made great again.

From the transcript (beginning at 54:12):

From London to Lima, from Rome to Athens, from Paris to Seoul, from Cairo to Tokyo, and Amsterdam to right here in New York City, we stand on the shoulders of the leaders and legends, generals and giants, heroes and titans who won and built our beloved nations, all of our nations, with their own courage, strength, spirit, and skill. Our ancestors climbed to mountains, conquered oceans, crossed deserts, and trekked over wide open plains. They charged into thunderous battles, plunged into grave dangers, and they were soldiers, and farmers, and workers, and warriors, and explorers, and patriots. They built towns into cities, tribes into kingdoms, ideas into industries, and small islands into mighty empires. You're a part of all of that. 

"How are you? Guess what, I’m waiting in the street because everything is closed for you," said French president Macron telephoning Donald Trump from a street in New York City.

Quoted in "France’s Emmanuel Macron calls Trump for help as he’s forced to walk through NYC to avoid UN traffic" (NY Post).

Bizarre video showed the European leader begging an NYPD cop to help him get through on Monday, soon after he finished giving a controversial speech to the United Nations.... The French leader was then forced to make the next 30 minutes of his journey on foot through the streets of Manhattan.... Macron appeared to take the potential diplomatic incident in stride, smiling and posing for pictures with gawking passersby.

Once more, I am the only martyr..."

"... in late night."

I would have advised Steven Colbert against using the word "martyr."

It is — at least for some of us — too evocative of the loss of Charlie Kirk. Why wouldn't you notice? Or did you notice and intend to make sport of it?

The OED has this as the oldest meaning of the English word "martyr":

"It's too much liquid."

Trump: Break it up, because it's too much liquid, too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number, the size of this thing, when you look at it, it's like 80 different vaccines pic.twitter.com/bBHjLBqTj9

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 22, 2025

Love your enemy/hate your enemy — What did Trump really say at the Charlie Kirk memorial?

I see the headline in the NYT, framing Trump's statement in the conventional anti-Trump manner: "'I Hate My Opponent': Trump’s Remarks at Kirk Memorial Distill His Politics/President Trump has been fueled by grievance and animosity over the course of his political and public life."

Is Trump a hater? I'm not going to sift through everything he's done "over the course of his political and public life," but I will read the transcript of his speech — which I listened to live — and zero in on the part about hating his adversaries, which is getting attention from his adversaries, as I presume he knew it would:

"The spiral staircase leading up to the roof-deck at Los Angeles’s Tesla Diner is beautiful, or at least it is expensive-looking."

"It has video screens overhead and glowy lights at the base of each step and its own special soundtrack, a down-tempo, bleepy-bloopy composition that whooshes in as a notable contrast to the main dining room’s dad rock...."

I'm reading "Elon Musk's Utterly Mundane Vision of Dining/The Tesla Diner looks a lot like what we already have, just weirder and worse," by Ellen Cushing in The Atlantic (gift link).

Yeah, why not kick Elon Musk around over basically nothing? Nearly all of the food bought in restaurants in America is utterly mundane, isn't it? But somehow this utter mundaneness is "weirder and worse." But what's this about the music? What exactly would this "dad rock" be? Bruce Springsteen? I ask Spotify and it spits out a playlist of 125 songs and #1 is "Born to Run"... oops, I mean "Born in the U.S.A." "Born to Run" is #111.

A sample of the food: "The chili was oversalted and oddly smooth, with a slab of nonmelting cheese sitting on top of it like a pillbox hat.... The french fries had a disconcerting astringency, like they’d been dusted in the same stuff that’s put on Hint of Lime Tostitos. All together, the food, like its surroundings, is simultaneously over- and underconsidered, high form and low function. It isn’t bad so much as odd."

Anyway, did you see Elon Musk reuniting with Trump at the Charlie Kirk memorial? Did you wonder what they said? A lip-reader at TikTok has Trump doing all the talking: "How are you doing? So Elon, I've heard you wanted to chat. Let's try and work out how to get back on track. I've missed you." Lots of nodding from Musk. 

Sunrise — 6:24, 6:49, 6:52, 6:54, 7:00.

And finally, the western view:

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"Jimmy Kimmel Returns: ABC Ends Suspension Starting Tuesday."

Variety reports.

Good! Glad to hear it. Un-martyr the man and put him back in the position that fits him, an ordinary host of a old-fashioned late-night show who might occasionally say something in slightly poor taste. 

"Please. Stop now. Stop printing articles about him. Stop helping Trump & the gop turn him into a martyr for their cause."

"Two weeks of coverage for a right wing provocateur known for his anti-LGBTQI, bigoted, anti-feminist, & pro-Christian nation rhetoric is beyond enough."

So says one of the most highly rated comments at the New York Times article "Behind Charlie Kirk’s Spiritual Journey That Fused Christianity and Politics/Sunday’s memorial showcased how Mr. Kirk’s experience dovetailed with the broader story of American evangelicalism over the past decade."

That's gift link, so you can see the extent to which the NYT may have slanted the story — clearly, not enough for that commenter.

Charlie's approach was to engage his adversaries in endless, ongoing conversation — more and more speech. The commenter insists on an end to speech. That too is speech — saying you want an end to the speech on a topic you don't want to have to speak about. It has an eloquent implication: The listener may assume you don't have a powerful contradiction. 

Where in traditional/social media is alarm being raised about "Christian nationalism"?

AI responded to my question with a concise, well-formatted chart:

"The world needs... young people pointed in the direction of truth and beauty."

Said Erika Kirk in her speech at the memorial to her husband yesterday.

And then Elon Musk, who was also there in the stadium, said something that to my ear is similar: "He was killed because... because he was showing people the light. And he was killed by the dark." And he immediately restated his point: "Charlie was murdered by the dark for showing people the light."

Truth and beauty/Light and dark — it is emphatically not nonbinary. There is a longing for clarity — an alternative to nihilism. It is offered now, especially to the young. It is not what they have been used to hearing, and it may be exactly what they want, especially after Dark showed its eagerness to murder Light. Dark could not prove Light wrong. 

"Broadway is not a business anymore. The statistics are terrible. I am very worried. I look at the economics of this, and I just don’t see how it can sustain."

Said Andrew Lloyd Webber, quoted in "The Broadway Musical Is in Trouble/With the cost of staging song-and-dance spectacles skyrocketing and audiences drawn to older hits, none of the musicals that opened last season have made a profit. Fewer are planned this season" (NYT).

The new musicals “Tammy Faye,” “Boop!” and “Smash” each cost at least $20 million to bring to the stage, and each was gone less than four months after opening. All three lost their entire investments. Lavish revivals of much-loved classics are also fizzling. On Sunday, a revival of “Cabaret,” budgeted for up to $26 million and featuring a costly conversion of a Broadway theater into a nightclub-like setting, threw in the towel at a total loss. A $19.5 million revival of “Gypsy” that starred Audra McDonald and earned strong reviews closed last month without recouping its investment. Even a buzzy production of “Sunset Boulevard,” which won this year’s Tony for best musical revival, failed to make back the $15 million it cost to mount.

Is every new show about one nutty lady?!

"Smash" was about Marilyn Monroe. "Boop" was about Betty Boop as you can probably guess. The rest of the shows named there are all about one central strong weird woman — all from more than a half century ago. It's quite unfresh! Why were they expected to succeed? Maybe because they think their audience is a bunch of old ladies. Of course, they want to see Audra McDonald as Mama Rose. 

One Broadway investor, James L. Walker Jr. of Atlanta, is so frustrated by the current economics that he’s litigating. After putting $50,000 into the “Cabaret” revival, he filed suit against the producers, alleging fraud. In an interview, Walker pointed out that the show has grossed nearly $90 million in ticket sales, plus whatever it made in sales of liquor, food and merchandise, and that he can’t accept that the investors who raised up to $26 million to finance the show have gotten nothing back. “How is that a good business model?” he asked.

"Sherrill quickly brought up a central theme - Ciattarelli is a Trump acolyte. She challenged him to say where he disagrees with the president."

"Ciattarelli really did not go there. But he did talk about the good things he said Trump has done for New Jersey, He said they included opposition to wind farms off the Jersey shore, opposition to congestion pricing in New York City and increasing the deduction cap for state and local taxes, or SALT...."

I'm reading "Sherrill v. Ciattarelli: Who Won the First 2025 Gubernatorial Debate?" (Inside New Jersey).

Answering the question in the headline: "It is always worth wondering if debates change minds. This one probably didn't. No candidate, for example, said anything really stupid."

"The fact that Kirk was killed while he was answering a question about the purported prevalence of trans mass shooters (a fiction he had helped promulgate)..."

"... and the news that the suspect in Kirk’s killing apparently has a romantic partner who is trans have hypercharged this process of disowning [the work of civil society]. On Monday morning, before returning from a weekend away, I entered the following words into the search bar on my phone: 'famous trans people.' Then I tried 'transgender journalists,' 'transgender professors' and a few similar queries. My name did not come up. This was my inexact way of measuring the risk that someone would target me. It appeared to be low, even after a weekend of Donald Trump and his prominent allies blaming the left in general and trans people in particular for Kirk’s assassination. OK, I thought, I could go home, for now...."

Writes M. Gessen in "This Is the Feeling of Losing a Country. I Know It Well" (NYT).

Does Tylenol cause autism? There's an obvious and now unavoidable experiment that will answer the question.

Now, absolutely no one should take acetaminophen during pregnancy. Who would?

Later, take note of whether the rate of autism declines.

I'm seeing: "Scientists have reacted with dismay at the announcement [linking acetaminophen to autism], warning that the 'fearmongering' will prevent women from accessing pain relief during pregnancy" (in "Taking Tylenol in pregnancy linked to autism, Trump to claim/The president promises ‘one of the biggest medical announcements in US history’, claiming a discovery as to why the disorder developed and treatment" (London Times)).

What's the opposite of "fearmongering"? False reassurance? I don't think this is fearmongering but a wise balance of factors. Who would take acetaminophen while pregnant if it might cause autism? I suspect that what these "scientists" are "dismayed" about is not about the future but the past. It's not that women are going to be afraid. Going forward, they'll just refrain from using acetaminophen. It's easy to use an abundance of caution with respect to something so specific. What's dismaying is the burden of guilt to be laid on women who have already used acetaminophen during pregnancy.

Sunrise — 6:18, 6:44, 6:54.

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"My husband Charlie — he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life.... That young man — I forgive him."

"I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do."

Erika Kirk forgives the man who murdered her husband:

"My husband Charlie...he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life...that young man...

I forgive him.

I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do." pic.twitter.com/Pd1yGRMRVw

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 21, 2025

That was the strongest moment of the 5-hour memorial, the widow forgiving the murderer — because it is what Christ did.

The other exceptionally strong statement of Christianity came from Marco Rubio:

Marco Rubio summoned his inner Father Mike Schmitz and explained the entire story of salvation history in under 90 seconds.

🙌❤️🔥✝️ pic.twitter.com/W7ZO11CjQ3

— Bree Solstad (@BreeSolstad) September 21, 2025

The memorial for Charlie Kirk, live.

"I still recall with a smile my then 6yo asking 'did they have skipping when you were a kid?'"

From "Skipping Isn’t Just for Kids. It Can Be a Great Workout. It feels like play. Here’s what fitness experts say about using the activity as a training tool" (NYT).

The Times article points us to this Andrew Huberman/Stuart McMillan video:

Another thing about skipping is, it amuses onlookers.

"Why assume that our minds, in their sober 'default state,' are naturally designed to grasp reality as it really is? Smith-Ruiu asks."

"Why not 'explore all the modes of consciousness available to us'? What might they tell us about 'the relationship between mind and world?'... A specialist in the history and philosophy of science whose next book is a scholarly study of Leibniz, he stressed that he wrote 'On Drugs' stone sober and broke no laws to obtain the substances he ingested for his research.... On a dose 'far more than is recommended,' he experienced an intense 'interpersonal exchange' with Marilyn Monroe, who loomed from a poster on his hotel room wall, and, via YouTube clips... 'Mama Cass suddenly appeared to me as "Mama" in the fullest sense: the fount of my being and the origin of my world.' On yet another trip, he understood that he was no longer any kind of being at all."

From "Psychedelics Blew His Mind. He Wants Other Philosophers to Open Theirs. An intense exchange with Marilyn Monroe sounds silly. But in a new book, Justin Smith-Ruiu is dead serious about what we might learn from altered states" (NYT).

Here's the book: "On Drugs: Psychedelics, Philosophy, and the Nature of Reality" (commission earned).

It was all I hoped it would be....

"This guy is reaching out to his mortal enemy saying, we need to be gentlemen, sit down together and disagree agreeably. And the next day, he's killed."

Says Van Jones about the message Charlie Kirk sent him on September 9th, which he didn't open until the next day, after Kirk had died.

Jones appears broken up about it — on camera, on CNN, interfacing with Anderson Cooper. If it's political theater, it's good political theater. If Van Jones is experiencing a true change of heart, I hope he is one of millions:

JONES: "Everybody knows we were not friends, okay? At all. But you praise the good when it’s time to memorialize somebody and what he did. And I didn’t even know it was good. He was not for censorship. He was not for civil war. He was not for violence. He was for dialogue, open debate and dialogue. Even with me. Even with me."

COOPER: "Would you have gone on his show?"

Terrifying home invasion by the police in the UK.

You might think this is not possible. I hit the Grok icon and asked if this really is what it appears to be and was told yes:

What the HELL have I just watched?!

Two police officers visit a family home to seize a child's phone for *viewing a social media post*.

If she doesn't comply, they threaten to 'escalate'.

This is terrifying.
The police are out of control.pic.twitter.com/Tn83kV8zIn

— Lee Harris (@addicted2newz) September 21, 2025

ADDED: There's some discussion in the comments about the video being edited in a possibly deceptive way. I confronted Grok, and got this response.

"This is an outrageous assault on our free speech and ability to educate each other. It’s just bonkers to me that the federal government is imposing these kinds of restraints..."

"... that we’re taking away valuable information from our citizens who visit this park, and that we are trying to dumb everyone down and pretend real weather events don’t happen by not letting you read a simple sign."

Said Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), quoted in "National parks remove signs about climate, slavery and Japanese detention/The removals come after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March seeking to remove 'improper partisan ideology' from federal institutions."

You have beautiful places, the best land and rocks and trees and waters of America, and because people want to come see these wonders of nature, you see it as opportunity to interpose human messages — negative, downer messages, propaganda — on eyesore signs. Let visitors think their own thoughts, read their own books, and speak to each other about what they think. That's the better free speech and shared education, not the speech by the government that is installed in the form of inert signs. 

Pingree complains that the new policy is "trying to dumb everyone down and... not letting you read a simple sign." But if I'm here for the landscape and the government has put up a political education sign, it's not letting me not see the government's speech.

Should the widow stand back and know that her place is to quietly mourn and to express no opinions?

I'm reading The Washington Post: "Erika Kirk emerges as vocal public figure, redefining role of political widow/Vocal and stridently determined to advance her husband’s work, she has embraced her public role" (gift link).

In modern times, the number of women who have found themselves in this unenviable and tragic situation in the United States is small. The group is largely limited to the widows of the men slain in the tempestuous mid-1960s. Some biographers who chronicled the lives of those men — Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and John F. and Robert F. Kennedy — are wary of drawing historical comparisons that might by extension elevate Charlie Kirk, who made numerous disparaging remarks about Black people...

Inflammatory characterization casually inserted. 

... to the stature of an iconic civil rights leader or a president. But they see important distinctions between the ways the widows of the ’60s acted in their unwanted roles and the ways Erika Kirk is defining it.

“It’s such a different era and the partisanship is so much more extreme now,” said David Margolick, who wrote a book on the relationship between Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and whose journalism is being turned into a documentary about Coretta Scott King and the Kennedy widows flying RFK’s body home after he was killed. “And people are all in their respective political communities and have very little interaction with people on the other side. In [the era of the earlier widows], as partisan as it was — and some people really hated the Kennedys — there was respect for the presidency that crossed party lines. The mourning wasn’t red and blue.”

At the Saturday Night Café...

 ... you can talk about whatever you want.

No photo today. Big thunderstorm.

"If I have 2086 blog posts in 2025 at the end of today, how many blog posts must I publish per day in the remaining days of this year to have a total of 3000 for the year?"

I asked ChatGPT. Answer: "You must publish about 9 blog posts per day for the rest of 2025 to reach 3000."

"And how many per day have I averaged so far?" Answer: "You’ve averaged about 7.9 posts per day so far in 2025."

Me: "I've had over 3,000 for many years, and I'm not blogging less, just writing longer posts. It would be easy to throw in 2 very short things a day or break a long thing up into 2 things if I got goal oriented, but I have been doing things naturally. Look how consistent my weekly output is" — I reprint the 2025 numbers that you can see in the sidebar.

ChatGPT offers to show me "what the year-end total would look like under a 'natural' pace vs. a 'goal-oriented' pace (say, 2 extra/day)?" I agree, read the answer, then say, "The natural pace is so bizarrely consistent that I think I should respect it as a secret and personal power that transcends the obvious value of the very round number, 3000. What is base 10 to me?"

"I've been a little bit divisive in the sense that I've been hitting people pretty hard — a little bit, yeah."

Said Donald Trump, on December 17, 2015 — with Jimmy Kimmel, in happier times:

And here's Bill Maher, last night, commenting on the hard hit against Jimmy Kimmel:

"Feras’s home, which he shares with his wife and nine children, comprises four connected 2,400-year-old caves and an adjoining tent."

"Just a 10-minute walk away are the remains of Petra’s grand temple and its colonnaded main street.... The caves occupied by the Bdoul were originally an integral part of a wealthy trading city – the thriving capital of the Nabateans for 500 years before it was annexed by the Romans in around AD100 and eventually abandoned three centuries later.... Officials charged with the management and development of Petra say the Bdoul who still live on the site are there illegally. They contend... that their use of the caves as homes, animal shelters, shops and storerooms risks causing irreparable harm. 'If we want to preserve the integrity of the site for future generations then we have to stop the use of the caves for damaging activities,' said Dr Fares Braizat, the chief commissioner of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority. '... it is illegal for anyone to live in or use the archaeological monuments within the [site of Petra] for whatever purposes.'..."

From "'I can’t survive in a house': Petra’s Bedouin resist moves to evict them from ancient cave homes/Plans to improve the world heritage site for tourists put its living culture at risk, say locals and campaigners" (The Guardian).

There's a great "Fall of Civilizations" episode about Petra, here:

"Drug-sniffing dogs swarmed St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary last week when cops were called for possible illegal narcotics on the scenic, tree-covered campus...."

"Instead, what they found were first-degree relics — the body or body fragments, such as bone or flesh — of Saint Raphael of Brooklyn, a Syrian immigrant who founded St. Nicholas Cathedral in what is now downtown Brooklyn and was glorified in 2000.... 'The people that found them didn’t know what they were,' said Father Michael Nasser of the seminary. 'They weren’t in a typical container.... We got to meet the K-9 units who came out here for a special prayer and blessing and allowed us to thank them for all they do....'"

The New York Post reports.

"I am ill, seriously ill — it is the end, but I am not afraid. You will continue the work, you know how, but you must be careful. You know how to behave; I don’t need to tell you anything more."

Wrote Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, who died in 1937 and left a letter that was not to be opened until September 19, 2025, which was yesterday.

Quoted in "Masaryk’s 'last words' envelope opened: insights into a nation’s founding president" (Radio Prague International).

We talked about the great letter-opening yesterday, here. I had a bit of the text in that post, though I wasn't sure it was from the letter: "If people are uneducated and foolish, there is not much that can be done. People are glad to be foolish — do not make it easy for them, and argue with them." I see that is indeed from the letter.

The letter also says this about the Germans: "Give them what they deserve, but no more."

"The FBI under former President Biden launched a sweeping investigation called 'Arctic Frost' that included major Republican organizations and conservative groups..."

"... according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Grassley revealed whistleblower evidence at a Senate Judiciary hearing showing the probe, which began with 2020 election challenges, later expanded to 92 Republican targets such as the RNC, the Republican Attorneys General Association, and Turning Point USA. 'Arctic Frost wasn't just a case to politically investigate Trump,' Grassley said. 'It was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and Department of Justice prosecutors could achieve their partisan ends and improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus."

From "FBI's 'Arctic Frost' probe into Jan. 6 investigated Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA" (Yahoo, republishing Snopes, quoting the Facebook page The Federalist Papers).

"When I heard the tragic news, I said, ‘I wonder who he was.’ And then all of a sudden, this overwhelming... sense of sorrow and kind of renewal."

"And I thought, I gotta learn about this guy. And the more I learned about him, I thought, this guy's a modern day Saint Paul. He was a missionary, he's an evangelist, he's a hero. He's one, I think, that knew what Jesus meant when he said: The truth will set you free.... Now, I understand he was pretty blunt and he was pretty direct. He didn't try to avoid any controversy. He didn't even try to avoid confrontation. The difference is the way, the mode, the style that he did it, always with respect. And not only was that a gracious... virtuous thing to do, it's effective, 'cuz when your opponents see this guy respects me, we kinda disagree here, but he kinda enjoys me, and he's thanking me for being here, and he's telling me he appreciates the trust I have in him in sharing my views. I thought: This guy can teach us something."

Said Cardinal Dolan:

Cardinal Dolan says he spent the past week studying Charlie Kirk’s life, and the more he learned, the more he saw him as a modern-day Saint Paul.

A fearless missionary, a passionate evangelist, and a true hero.

“When I heard the tragic news, I said, ‘I wonder who he was.’ And… pic.twitter.com/p77aAPOQGB

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 19, 2025

I want to relate this to a post I wrote the day after the assassination that some readers objected to but that I defended as "as a serious invitation to contemplate Kirk as a saint."

I knew at the time this question was complicated for Catholics because of their official procedure for canonization, and I observe that Cardinal Dolan — an excellent speaker — avoids directly declaring Charlie Kirk a "saint." He doesn't say "Saint Charlie," but he does declare Kirk "a modern day Saint Paul" — and "a missionary," "an evangelist," and "a hero." I'm not Catholic, and I don't know where the official line is, but the Cardinal seems to be stepping forthrightly up to the line. I think Cardinal Dolan knows exactly what he's saying and deploys clear language perfectly. 

"When Secret Service agents approached him, he claimed to be a member of law enforcement and said he was armed, the service said."

"'The individual is not a member of authorized law enforcement working the event and is currently in custody,' the service said, adding that he had not been arrested as of late Friday night.... The apparent unauthorized entry raised security concerns around the memorial, which is at capacity and is expected to include President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and many other administration officials and top aides."

I'm reading "Armed man detained at site of planned memorial service for Charlie Kirk/The service, which will feature President Donald Trump and Cabinet members, has a top-level security designation akin to a Super Bowl" (WaPo).

How is it possible to have enough security when malefactors are capable of attempting to infiltrate security — either by faking being a member of law enforcement or by managing to become a member?

There are prominent historical examples of political figures killed by their own security guards. I think of Indira Gandhi, but you can go back to Philip II of Macedon:

"As for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Harris wrote that he told her he was hiking and would 'call back' but 'never did.'..."

"Newsom addressed the excerpt during a news conference Friday in California, downplaying any tension with Harris and ribbing a reporter for asking about it. 'Trivial doesn’t even begin to describe how inconsequential my comments are about to be,' Newsom said, going on to confirm he was hiking and saying he missed a call from an unknown number. 'At that exact same moment, [I] was working with my team to put out a statement to endorse her. I assume that’s in the book as well.'"

From "Harris book ignites tensions with potential 2028 presidential rivals/In her upcoming memoir, Harris recounts her presidential campaign, offering blunt observations of top Democrats she could face as future opponents" (WaPo).

What a great line: Trivial doesn’t even begin to describe how inconsequential my comments are about to be.

ADDED: Also in that article: "Harris portrayed [Josh] Shapiro as overly ambitious and confident, a characterization that a Shapiro spokesman, Manuel Bonder, called 'simply ridiculous.'" What's wrong with being ambitious and confident... other than the worry that he'd outshine her? Anyone capable of serving as President is going to be "ambitious and confident." I assume Bonder mean it's ridiculous to think those qualities are bad and not it's ridiculous to think Shapiro has them.