Sunrise — 6:39.

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"C.E.O. Choked Man Who Danced Barefoot on Cruise Ship...."

A NYT headline speaks of the recent trend of throwing your life away for nothing.

The altercation began shortly after Mr. DeGiorgio’s wife had confronted the man about barefoot dancing, telling him, “Look, we are all grown-ups here — can you put your shoes on?” Mr. DeGiorgio’s wife told investigators that the man had made a crude remark to her, and the security video showed him giving her the middle finger, according to the F.B.I...

I looked it up. The "crude remark" was "Shut up, you fucking bitch." 

We're told DeGiorgio's pay package (at First American Financial) is $7.8 million.

What's so bad about taking your shoes off to dance? It can be a way to be quieter, more graceful, or to protect the dance floor — think sock hop. And I've heard the wistful longing: There will come a time when you can even take your clothes off when you dance.

"Musk’s onetime biographer Seth Abramson wrote on X that he would 'peg his IQ as between 100 and 110'..."

"... and claimed that there was 'zero evidence in his biography for anything higher.' The economics commentator Noah Smith estimated Musk’s IQ at more than 130, a number gleaned from his reported SAT score. A circulating screenshot shows Fox News has pegged the number at 155, citing Sociosite, a junk website. The pollster Nate Silver guessed that Musk is 'probably even a "genius,"' and theorized that he may not always appear that way because... 'high IQs serve as a force multiplier for both positive and negative traits.'... To some of our most powerful people, IQ has come to stand in as the totalizing measure of a person — and a justification for the power that they claim. Trump has spent much of his second term sorting humans into 'low IQ individuals' (Kamala Harris, Representative Al Green) and 'high IQ individuals' (cryptocurrency boosters, Musk, Musk’s 4-year-old son)... Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is seeking 'super high-IQ' applicants.... This whole elite intelligence-measuring contest sets the stage for the 'high IQ' tech leader to seize ownership over the concept of intelligence itself — and to ultimately bring all people under its control. As Musk recently posted on X, the platform that he owns: 'It increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence.'"

Writes Amanda Hess, in "What Is Elon Musk’s IQ? The questionable measure of intelligence has now been uncoupled from any test and loosed into the discourse to justify Silicon Valley’s power" (NYT).

I hate to think I'm inclined to ask Grok: What did Elon Musk mean by "It increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence"? And: What does it say about my IQ that I had to ask?

I didn't know the term "bootloader." Reminds me of "bootlicker." And I'm distracted by the (irrelevant) image of a boot... but "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

"Many business people and investors are still hoping Mr. Trump will recognize the havoc he is creating and ease off his tariffs. But so far, he doesn’t seem concerned...."

I'm reading a column by Steven Rattner, who was counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration, in "'Few of Us Ever Imagined He Would Go This Far.'"

I think Trump is concerned. Just not the way Rattner and business people and investors are hoping he'll be concerned. 

Why is this article illustrated with an image of Trump atop a weather vane, with his hands outstretched to feel the wind blow, and moving from side to side? It doesn't reflect what Trump is doing. Is it a picture of the business people's hope?

I think Trump has chosen his solution to a problem — or set of problems — and he's locked in. If he could be shaken out of his resolve by cries of "havoc," virtually everything he's started he would have stopped.  

Side trip: What does it mean to "cry havoc"? It doesn't mean to cry out "This is havoc!" It means: "Let's wreak havoc!"

"A conservative commentator took offense at the statement conservatives 'are really gratified to see a conservative person on television.'"

"The person who made the statement wondered if 'gratified' is now a 'trigger' word. This made me think the commentator might think 'gratified' implies sex."

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok.

I was reading "Meghan McCain Gets Triggered By Carrie Coon After 'White Lotus' Star Said Former 'View' Co-Host Was 'Gratified' For Conservative Character" (Deadline). 

So, McCain is the "conservative commentator."

Sunrise — 6:26, 6:35.

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"The aim is clear: to stop the executive branch in its tracks and prevent the administration from changing direction on hundreds of billions of dollars of government largesse..."

"... that the executive branch considers contrary to the United States’ interests and fiscal health. Only this court can right the ship — and the time to do so is now."

Wrote Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general, in an emergency application, quoted in "Supreme Court Lets Trump Suspend Grants to Teachers/In boilerplate letters, the administration told recipients that the grants supported diversity efforts and were wasteful." (NYT).

The Court's order was 5 to 4, with the Chief Justice voting with the 3 liberal Justices.

"Because homes, offices and warehouses are already built for humans... humanoids are better equipped to navigate the world than any other robot...."

"I first visited 1X’s offices in Silicon Valley nearly a year ago. When a robot named Eve entered the room, opening and closing the door, I could not shake the feeling that this wide-eyed robot was really a person in costume. Eve... felt human. I thought of 'Sleeper,' the 1973 Woody Allen sci-fi comedy filled with robotic butlers.... Mr. Jang was entranced by the way that Eve moved.... 'I saw a level of hardware that I did not think was possible,' Mr. Jang said.... And because of growing shortage of workers who handle both house cleaning and care of elders and children, organizations that represent these workers welcome the rise of new technologies that do work in the home — provided that companies like 1X build robots that work well alongside human workers."

From "Invasion of the Home Humanoid Robots/Dozens of companies are building robots that look like humans. One of them is training a machine to be a butler and will soon test them in homes" (NYT)(free-access link so you can see the photos and video).

ADDED: Still waiting for The Orb.

"We will never forget the names of precious American souls like Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and many others who were savagely killed by illegal alien crime."

"Last June, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was brutally assaulted and murdered by two illegal aliens in her home state of Texas. To memorialize her young life and love of nature and animals, I proudly renamed the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in Texas to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge. May this be Jocelyn’s little piece of Heaven on Earth."

From "National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, 2025," a proclamation by President Trump (at whitehouse.gov).

"Russell Brand, the comedian and actor, has been charged with one count each of rape, indecent assault and oral rape, as well as two counts of sexual assault...."

The London Times reports.

Scotland Yard said the charges related to alleged historical sex offences against four separate women, between 1999 and 2005, and are alleged to have taken place in Bournemouth and London....

The Times gets into some of Brand's "historical" bad behavior: 

In 2000, Brand took a presenting job on MTV. He was sacked a year later after he arrived at work the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden....

"This is a patient that was very sick.... It went through an operation on Liberation Day, and it's going to be... a very booming country."

"It's going to be amazing, actually.... The operation's over, and now we let it settle in. You see the plants are starting to construction, already. We have many plants — Indiana massive auto plant...."

Do you like the reasoning through analogy? The economy is a person, its supposed problem is a sickness, the tariffs are a surgical procedure, and the patient is in the post-op stage. That might be a difficult stage, with various pains and struggles. Even if this is a good analogy — economies are like human bodies, and tariffs are like an operation for an illness, and the immediate effect is a stage in the recovery from surgery — we still don't know if the right medical treatment was chosen and performed successfully.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "Could you summarize the Susan Sontag book 'Illness as Metaphor' and say whether it has some use in critiquing the above-stated analogy about the economy?"

That book is less about using illness as a metaphor to explain something other than illness and more about using something other than illness to explain illness. From "Illness as Metaphor" (commission earned):

"Their first words to each other when they met were “I love your teeth!' 'I love YOUR teeth!' And then Mike White wrote it as their first lines of dialogue."

A discussion on the "White Lotus" subreddit draws attention to Charlotte Le Bon’s (Chloe’s) teeth, which are odd, but not as odd Aimee Lou Wood’s (Chelsea’s) teeth, which are very conspicuously odd and are the "White Lotus" teeth that get the most attention. 

The photo at the link is of Le Bon, so if you don't know what I'm talking about and you need to see Aimee Lou Wood, here's a clip:

Lots of people are enjoying the off-the-norm teeth, and I hope this is part of a trend toward seeing beauty in what is natural and not trying to "fix" everything. 

"Cory Booker didn’t go to the bathroom for 25 hours. Is that … OK?"

Headline at The Guardian, where we're told..

[H]e seemingly didn’t pee once the whole time. (A rep for Booker confirmed to TMZ that he did not wear a diaper during his speech.)

I would have written: A rep for Booker confirmed to TMZ that Booker claimed he did not wear a diaper during his speech. Or, if the rep claimed personal knowledge of which unseen garments Booker wore: A rep for Booker corroborated Booker's claim that he did not wear a diaper during his speech.

Does anyone believe that? It seems reckless. Does Booker want to appear reckless? He may think that appearing reckless is better than being thought of as having worn a diaper. But the fear of being thought of as having worn a diaper is ableist and ageist. And yet, look at our Congress.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "At the State of the Union speech in 2025 — I know it wasn't officially a 'State of the Union' — what percentage of those in the audience were wearing diapers — in your estimation? Consider how long in advance they needed to get to and remain in their seats, the expected length of the speech, the length of time after the speech before access to facilities, and the age and frailty of the members of Congress."

Anyway, the Guardian's answer to its question — "Is that … OK?" — is no.

Sunrise — 6:14, 6:33, 6:25.

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"Turns out they were watching 'The Death of a Unicorn'...."

Who knew Tesla vandals were into unicorns?

Man gets caught kicking a Cybertruck. It doesn't end well for him. pic.twitter.com/LD7hNtPDQM

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) April 3, 2025

ADDED: Strangely enough, this is not my first post that has both my "Tesla" and my "unicorns" tags. The other one, back in 2018, was about settling a lawsuit about a drawing of a farting unicorn that Tesla used as an icon on its video screen and Musk put in a Christmas message to customers. 

"These men are all caught with their pants down, and Theissen marvels at how well-endowed they are."

That's the top-rated comment at Marc Thiessen's Washington Post column "The Signal chat’s big takeaway? Trump has built an effective team. Americans got a fly-on-the-wall view of a group working together to execute the president’s policy."

Men. Always trying to "solve" the "problem."

Charlie Kirk is all "White college indoctrinated women will ruin America if we let them. They are brainwashed. They are completely indoctrinated. The worldview that is being uploaded to young women on a daily basis is hyper-narcissistic, hyper-selfish. I am the only one that matters. Who are you to tell me how I should act? And it makes them miserable. I do not know how to solve this problem. I am open to suggestions."

 

Charlie Kirk “I do not know how to solve this problem. I am open to suggestion”

“White college indoctrinated women will ruin America if we let them. They are brainwashed. They are completely indoctrinated. The worldview that is being uploaded to young women on a daily basis is… pic.twitter.com/OaHPpuffKq

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 3, 2025

I'll give you a suggestion, Charlie. Women are not a "problem" to be "solved." Framing things as problems and going right for the solution is, stereotypically, male. Let your male stereotypicality be the problem you can solve, Charlie, and open the door to a clearer view of the female mind. Step through that door and there is no longer a problem to be solved. Problem solved.

Just a suggestion!

"The rich are punishing Trump for siding with the neglected, humiliated working class.... People cannot believe that there is a President working for them... and telling Wall Street to go screw itself."

No matter what the screeching drama club says - Trump will be remembered well for trying to save the working class at a time when everyone is about to be replaced by robots. https://t.co/yJmmZU6UHc

— Sasha Stone (@realsashastone) April 3, 2025

At the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"When he lit a cigarette, a nurse in blue scrubs appeared over his shoulder, peering at Hockney with apparent concern."

"But by staying silent, the nurse respected the buttons that both he and Hockney wore, reading 'End Bossiness Soon.' The artist made those after the British government banned smoking in public spaces in 2007. These days, Hockney has 24-hour medical care, and ensuring that he will be well enough to go to Paris for the exhibition opening has been a priority for his team. He planned to travel by car, with his dachshund, Tess; his doctor would travel separately, he said. 'I am looking forward to it, because it is the largest exhibition I’ve ever had. Which it should be,' Hockney said with a wry smile. 'Shouldn’t it, really?'"

From "David Hockney Wants His Biggest Ever Show to Bring You Joy/The artist is 87 now and under constant medical care. But he was determined to make it to Paris for the exhibition of his life" (NYT)(free-access link).

"[Al] Gore said he believed the courts would prevent Trump from implementing some of his most extreme moves."

"I don’t think he’s going to be able to get away with that,' he said. 'I think we’re more resilient as a constitutional, representative democracy than a lot of people of fear.'"

From "Why Al Gore Is Shifting His Climate Activism Abroad/Given the Trump administration’s recent moves relating to climate, the former vice president is looking to the developing world for the next generation of climate activism" (NYT).

When Biden was President, "democracy" meant gracefully accepting the result of the election and working on winning the next election. But with Trump as President, "democracy" means stopping the duly elected President from doing what voters heard him promise he'd do.

I'm just asking for a stable definition of "democracy" to go along with the demand for our devotion to it. I agree with Gore that the courts have role to play. But it's a counter-majoritarian role. And we can argue about the scope of their role and whether they are doing too much or too little. We'll see how they do.

"The tape sat unremarkably on a shelf behind the counter, collecting dust for five, maybe 10 years — so much time that Rob Frith says he lost track."

"Frith, 69, could not seem to recall how it had found its way to Neptoon Records, his store in Vancouver, British Columbia, which in its 44 years has become a repository for tens of thousands of vinyl records and other musical relics.... "

So begins "Rare Beatles Audition Tape Surfaces in a Vancouver Record Shop/The recording appears to be from the band’s 1962 audition for Decca Records, which notably rejected the group" (NYT).

"As the men began posting about their discovery on social media, clues about the provenance of the recording began to emerge. Jack Herschorn, the former president and founder of Can-Base Records, a Vancouver label, said that a producer at Decca gave him the tape in the early 1970s and suggested that he could use it to make bootleg recordings. But he said he had qualms about doing so. 'I adored the Beatles,' Herschorn said. 'I wasn’t going to do anything that was not morally correct in my mind.' Herschorn, who now lives in Mexico, said that he put the tape into storage before leaving the record label, which later went bankrupt."

"While in [Justice] Kavanaugh’s neighborhood, Roske kept the gun, unloaded, in a locked box in the suitcase."

"When police searched the luggage, they also found 37 rounds of ammunition, according to earlier court filings, along with a tactical flashlight with a laser that could be mounted on the gun, a 'James Bond' lock pick set, a black face mask, a pair of 'hard-knuckled' tactical gloves, four black zip ties and hiking boots with padded soles affixed to their bottoms that police earlier said were for stealthy movement...."

From "Man accused in 2022 Kavanaugh assassination plot to plead guilty, lawyers say/Nicholas Roske, 29, was accused of flying from California and approaching Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home with a gun before turning himself in" (WaPo).

A quote from Roske: "I was under the delusion that I could make the world a better place by killing him."

"I told my lawyer, I said, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing that.’ He said, ‘Well, you know, you’ll be in contempt of court’ and this and that."

"I go, ‘OK. Well, how about this? I dare the judge to put me in jail for not wanting to visit [my] abusive father. I actually, I’m gonna double down on that. I double-dare him to arrest the most famous kid in the world."

Said Macaulay Culkin, quoted in "Macaulay Culkin makes scathing remarks about estranged ‘narcissistic’ dad Kit" (NY Post).

Things not found on eBay.

I see Pete Townshend recently said, "Four and a half weeks ago, I had my left knee replaced.... Maybe I should auction off the old one."

Quoted in "The Who singer Roger Daltrey going deaf and blind at 81: ‘The joys of getting old’" (NY Post)(I think Daltrey was just setting up a "Tommy" joke: He still has his voice or he'd "have a full Tommy.")

Do they let you take your old knee home with you after a replacement? I'm picturing Pete Townshend's knee in a glass case at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame labeled with some riff on "hope I die before I get old." It would be like those relics of saints you might see in an old cathedral. I'm not Catholic, but I've wondered about the inconsistency with the visualization of Judgment Day of bodies rising up out of graves — as depicted in the "Last Judgment" mural in the Sistine Chapel.

Isn't this why some people don't want to donate their organs — they think they might need them in the afterlife? Wouldn't it be a kick in the head if failing to check the organ-donor box on your driver's license turned out to be the shortcoming that barred you from heaven?

"That speech puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028."

Said "Frank Luntz: Booker marathon speech 'may have changed the course of political history'" (The Hill).

Everyone's talking like Trump now. Just get rid of the weasel word "may" and you have Trump-style rhetoric: Booker's speech changed the course of political history.

And then there was Elon Musk the other day, saying that the Wisconsin Supreme Court election would affect the entire destiny of humanity. No, he wasn't that Trumpian. He had weasel words. He said "I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will."

Speaking of speaking bluntly, here's Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley talking about that election:

How to dress to work in the garden... if you are a goddess.

I got that image from the front page as it looks right now. It's sandwiched between "Tesla Sales Are Slumping, Even in the Most E.V.-Friendly Place" and "After a Slow Start, High-Speed Rail Might Finally Arrive in America."

Those 3 things in a row... oh, New York Times... must you?

IN THE COMMENTS: Aggie said, "Well, at least they got a good picture in that place away from the cameras."

"The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary.... It has been brewing in legal academia for 20 to 30 years."

Says Elon Musk.

The left-wing ideology says the right-wing ideology is an even longer con.

Everyone's ideology says the other side's ideology is a con.

Overheard on the street during the Wisconsin protests of 2011: "All the assholes are over on the other side."

"Tesla is the only company with all the ingredients for making intelligent humanoid robots at scale."

"My prediction is that Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. It will be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made."

ELON MUSK: "Tesla is the only company with all the ingredients for making intelligent humanoid robots at scale.

My prediction is that Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. It will be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made." pic.twitter.com/Aqa6SsnsQW

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) April 2, 2025

Musk moves quickly into successes and failures. Yes, we could pause to cry a tear over Brad Schimel — upon whom once rested "the entire destiny of humanity" — but look here: Musk has got the biggest product ever made.

And:

pic.twitter.com/ZoideOC1RU

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2025

All right now. Who would mope about Wisconsin?!

There’s no success like failure....

AND: Embracing the notion that there's no success like failure, Musk now tweets: "I expected to lose, but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain."

"Why Do We Want to Believe That Jim Morrison Is Still Alive?"

Asks Naomi Fry (at The New Yorker). Subheadline: "The singer died in 1971. A new documentary series posits that he faked his death to escape the burden of fame, and is living in hiding."

That prompted me to ask Grok, "What was that movie in the 1980s about a rock star who faked his death so he could live life as an unknown? Maybe something like 'Eddie and the Cruisers.'"

The answer made me laugh: "You're likely thinking of Eddie and the Cruisers, a 1983 film that fits your description perfectly...."

Yes, Grok doesn't know what I'm thinking. I'm enjoying its circumspection. I'm likely thinking of "Eddie and the Cruisers" when I suggest that the movie I'm thinking of is maybe something like "Eddie and the Cruisers." So meticulous. That's what I want from my A.I.

Later in that artificially intelligent conversation, I wrote: "I'm seeing a New Yorker article, 'Why Do We Want to Believe That Jim Morrison Is Still Alive?' That strikes me as the better path for reflection. Not: Is he alive. But: Why do we want to believe that this particular dead person is alive? What if some other famous person really did withdraw from celebrity life and live on as — to coin a phrase — a complete unknown? They'd be looking on as people imagined Elvis or Jim still walking the earth and thinking: What about me? If I were writing a screenplay about this character, which dead celebrity could I choose to portray as the central character who had made himself too unknown and now struggles to return to the world as a somebody but realizes that no one will really care because it's not as though Elvis or Jim returned into the light."

Meanwhile, Jim was brought back to life in a movie, "The Doors" (1991). And now, we see that Val Kilmer — the actor who played him — died yesterday.

Sunrise — 6:32, 6:41.

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Turnout in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

I'm just watching what rolls in on my search on X for "wisconsin turnout." It's being said that high turnout favors Schimel (the Trump-endorsed candidate), and I'm seeing a lot of Schimel-oriented gloating about turnout on my plainly neutral search.

Sample tweets: "The first turnout numbers in Wisconsin indicate we could see an incredible 35% increase in turnout over the 2023 State Supreme Court race. That's +650K raw votes"/"Large voter turnout in our Wisconsin small community"/"I was number 123 at 10:00 a.m. this morning and are very rural small town in Central Wisconsin population 400. my sister voted at 8:00 a.m. at the same place and she was 25 so pretty good turnout for our little area."

"In 1984, the play gave memorable shape to a growing understanding that the underworld of sleazy small business was merely a microcosm of the bigger, more polite variety"

"It suggested the way social Darwinism lay at the root of our economic system, with its zero-sum games and dominance pyramids. There’s a reason Mitch and Murray, the owners of the agency and creators of the contest, are never seen, like golden-parachuters or two-bit Godots.... [David Mamet's] ideas have become conventional in the process of being overtaken and one-upped by reality. The whole world, many feel, is now a consortium of thugocracies, some even sanctioned by popular acclaim. In that context, two-bit players are too puny to worry about, and greed at the scale of a Cadillac unremarkable."

Writes Jesse Green, in "'Glengarry Glen Ross' Review: Caveat Emptor, Suckers!/Kieran Culkin, Bill Burr and Bob Odenkirk star in a bumpy revival of David Mamet’s play about salesmen with nothing worth selling" (NYT).

Kid Rock describes his dinner with Bill Maher and Donald Trump (and Dana White).

Kid Rock reveals how the White House dinner with President Trump, Bill Maher, and Dana White went last night. pic.twitter.com/jvY6tfFqC4

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) April 1, 2025

"It could not have been better. Everyone was so surprised, so pleasant.... We talked about things we had in common — ending wokeness, securing the border.... It blew my mind. I was very proud.""

Kid says he was "shocked" that Maher — for all his big contributions to Democratic candidates — had never been to the White House. And Trump was "so gracious — he took us up to the private residence, we saw the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Bedroom."

What did Kid Rock wear?

😂 pic.twitter.com/gBcA9SLl1a

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2025

"This is America showing itself because it was never in you in the first place. So why am I upset that you're upending something..."

"... that was never in you in the first place? I'm not saying that we shouldn't be upset. We definitely should be upset. But why are we-- we can't be upset at people that it was never in them in the first place to even care about somebody else."

Said a black woman, heard in episode 857 of "This American Life," "Museum of Now."

She is commenting on the removal of the 2-block-long, 50-foot-tall words, "Black Lives Matter," that had been set in concrete in a street near the White House.

Prompted by the question, "Is this more honest, actually, that they actually are ripping this up?," we hear her struggling in real time to understand why the de-installation of the motto wasn't upsetting her or wasn't upsetting her that much.

One might say the original installation was propaganda and pandering. Jackhammering it out of there said something accidental and authentic.

"Would the American public stand for [Trump using a tricky path to a third term]?"

"It would obviously be an attempt to technically circumvent the prohibitions of the 22nd Amendment. But you know that's what lawyers do all the time. Democrats and Republicans. You always try to find loopholes in in the law. Religious authorities do that. Secular authorities do that. Certainly,  constitutional lawyers do that all the time. For example, when the Supreme Court was about to write its decision saying you couldn't use race-specific affirmative action to give benefit to black applicants over white applicants, Larry Tribe issued a bunch of tweets and stuff figuring out how to circumvent that, how to get around that.... Would the American public stand for it if they felt that, yeah, we'd like Trump, yeah, we'd vote for him, we think he's probably the best president, but you know the framers of the 22nd amendment, when they said you can't be elected to the third term, I think they really meant you can't serve the third term but they didn't say it but they didn't say it um so it depends what is is and it depends what elect it is, and these are very very technical arguments but, hey, I'm a constitutional lawyer, I'm a law professor.... " 

"Museums, monuments, and public institutions should be spaces where these stories are held with care, not suppressed for political convenience."

"When we interrogate systems of power and challenge historical narratives that center whiteness and colonial dominance, we do not divide, we restore balance."

Said Nicholas Galanin, a sculptor of "Indigenous heritage" who produced a work called "The Imaginary Indian (Totem Pole)" ("a wooden totem disappearing into floral wallpaper" (image here)).

From "Taking Aim at Smithsonian, Trump Wades Into Race and Biology/His executive order faulted an exhibit which 'promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct,' a widely held position in the scientific community'" (NYT).

What are you holding with care and not suppressing? What are you interrogating and centering?

Was sculpture disappearing into the floral wallpaper of academic jargon?

"Musk went on to hand out oversized novelty checks to two winners for a million dollars each... One of those just happened to be the chairman of the Wisconsin College Republicans."

I'm listening to the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Is Elon Musk Buying Today’s Election in Wisconsin?"

At the Monday Night Café...

... you can talk all night.

"Blue-eyed and porcelain-faced, and with an acting style that initially veered from earnest to wooden..."

"... Mr. Chamberlain was rarely a critical favorite as a younger man. People magazine once summed up his reputation as an actor: 'pretty — and passionless.' Over the years, and especially toward the end of his career, he more than amply corrected that impression by tackling Hamlet and other Shakespearean parts on the English stage and embraced characters with a dark, even cruel edge. As a sign of his range, he grew a beard and wielded a samurai sword for 'Shogun' (1980), and playing a hunky but tormented Catholic priest wrestling with illicit love in 'The Thorn Birds' (1983), one of the most-watched miniseries of all time."

From "Richard Chamberlain, TV heartthrob and ‘king of the miniseries,’ dies at 90/He starred on the popular 1960s medical drama 'Dr. Kildare' and later in the miniseries 'Shogun' and 'The Thorn Birds'" (WaPo)(free-access link).

I remember arguing with my sister about who was better, Dr. Kildare or Ben Casey. She was for Dr. Kildare. Ben Casey (Vince Edwards) died 30 years ago, and now Dr. Kildare has joined him in that great hospital in the sky.

"There’s this saying that Biden, and then Harris, both repeated... 'building a middle class from the bottom up and the middle out.' What the hell does that mean?"

"So the first thing is there’s this kind of consultant language that just needs to go away. That was always annoying to people. But when your opponent, Donald Trump, is clearly not on any consultant-speak, it just makes it more glaring that you seem like the typical politicians."

Said Ben Rhodes, who's recommending "authenticity." He's quoted in "Obama’s Not Going to Save Democrats, but This Might/Michelle Cottle and Ben Rhodes on what Democrats misunderstand about authenticity" (NYT).

"At one point, Le Pen whispered: 'Incredible.' She then abruptly left without warning, before her sentence had been handed down."

From "Marine Le Pen barred from running for French presidency in 2027/Far-right leader found guilty of embezzlement of European funds and immediately barred from running for office" (The Guardian).

What kind of "embezzlement" was this? Is it anything like what Elon Musk and DOGE are finding in the United States?

"I have a tendency to do things that scare me, just for the sake of it. I've done skydiving, parachuting; I rode a motorcycle across India aged 63."

"I've also driv[en] semi trucks for a living, hauling 53 foot containers across the country. One day, parked at a huge truck stop in Texas, I got it into my head that it wasn't fair that I, a burly man in his sixties, could no longer skip like I did when I was seven. I asked myself why the case might be, and of course it was one of self consciousness. Had I been with my wife or a friend we could certainly do it. We'd be two adults playing like kids for a lark. But do it alone?"

That's the top comment on "Is Skipping Really a Good Workout? It feels like play. Here’s what fitness experts say about using the activity as a training tool" (NYT).

"Argentinian President Javier Milei has ordered the release of documents related to Nazis who fled to Argentina after World War II."

"These documents have sparked discussions and claims on social media that Adolf Hitler escaped to Argentina and lived there until the mid-1960s. The claims suggest that Hitler may have been aided by the United States and its allies, and that he fathered two children during his time in Argentina. However, these assertions remain speculative and are subject to ongoing debate and scrutiny regarding their historical accuracy."

Says the summary of a trending topic — "Milei Releases Documents on Nazis in Argentina" — on X.

"I'm not worried about whether I would be protected or not at said institution. I'm, you know, Privileged White Woman..."

Tim Walz’s daughter announced that she was accepted into a graduate school but has decided not to attend, stating that as a “privileged white woman,” she does not want to support institutions that fail to protect student protesters. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/F995YVHPrl

— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) March 30, 2025

Nothing more privileged than choosing to do nothing. She's just doing nothing for a year. But that's okay. She's "not really in a rush."

I wonder which institution "said institution" was. It would help in understanding how much of a sacrifice this is. In some cases, an ambitious person, who can afford to take a year off, could do things to bolster her credentials and gain access to a more prestigious school. Why, this public declining of an offer is itself a credential! Especially in some fields... so I have to wonder what she majored in, undergrad. Sociology? I looked it up. It was indeed sociology! And a minor in women’s gender and sexuality studies. 

So, great viral video. Great audition tape. 

I remember when feminism involved seeing woman as the victim, but now we see young women contemptuous of that viewpoint and not worried about whether I would be protected. 

"The American people would have been disenfranchised if the machine represented by the Kamala puppet had won."

Asserts Elon Musk:

Yes, it is utterly insane.

The American people would have been disenfranchised if the machine represented by the Kamala puppet had won.

Thankfully, we have President Trump. https://t.co/DMQQlKkP9a

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 31, 2025

Donald Trump tells us everything about his dinner with Bill Maher.

A post on Truth Social:

I got a call from a very good guy, and friend of mine, Kid Rock, asking me whether or not it would be possible for me to meet, in the White House, with Bill Maher, a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything, or anyone, TRUMP. I really didn’t like the idea much, and don’t like it much now, but thought it would be interesting. The problem is, no matter how much he likes your Favorite President, ME, he will publicly proclaim what a terrible guy I am, etc., very much like the Democrats at my recent Address to the Joint Session of Congress, where I stated, correctly, that no matter what I said or did, they wouldn’t stand, they wouldn’t applaud, they wouldn’t smile or laugh and, certainly, they wouldn’t be in any way “nice.” Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be proven wrong? In any event, I’m doing a favor for a friend. I look forward to meeting with Bill Maher, Kid Rock and, I believe, even the Legendary Dana White will be present. It might be fun or, it might not, but you will be the first to know!

Is that a way to treat a dinner guest? Does Maher get to bring 2 charismatic chatty confederates to balance the table?

ADDED: Kid Rock was on Bill Maher's show a few weeks ago. 

So is [blank] [blank]'s [blank] or not?

If you watched the new episode of "White Lotus," I invite you to discuss it, with spoilers, in the comments.

We watched as soon as it became available. Waiting for that moment to arrive, we were straining to follow the stammering silhouette, Elon Musk, that paced in front of a screen-filling, lit-up American flag. The flag image was so intense that when I averted my eyes, I hallucinated a flag that looked like this....

ADDED: Here's a look at the stage in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with Musk leaning into the "cheesehead" ethos:

pic.twitter.com/1eaWcy3LfW

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 31, 2025

At the Sunday Night Café...

 ... you can talk about whatever you want...

... including the Elon Musk/Wisconsin event that's about to unfold. Here's the live feed:

"You're pretending that these people are all coming out to see you. But they're coming out to see you 'cause you're giving them money and free food, right?"

"And you know, you're handing out water bottles, and everybody gets a sign, and everybody seems like they're kind of a part of a team. And for a lot of losers, a lot of people that don't have things going well in their life.... I was a loser at many points in my life. If somebody called me up and said, Hey man, you wanna make 400 bucks and just go to this Kamala Harris rally? I'm like, yeah, let's go. I would 100% go.... and I'd be like, yeah, I'm fucking voting for her, dude. He's Hitler, that guy. We gotta stop Hitler. And I'd be holding up that stupid sign — if you found me when I was 21. 100%. I would've taken that 400 bucks."

 

"Trump won’t rule out seeking a third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so."

 NBC News reports.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said in a Sunday-morning phone call with NBC News, referring to his allies. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.... I’m not joking...."...

NBC News asked about a possible scenario in which Vice President JD Vance would run for office and then pass the role to Trump. Trump responded that “that’s one” method.

“But there are others too,” Trump added. Asked to share another method, Trump simply responded “no.”

That's for him to know and for NBC to find out. 

"Just a heads-up."

Liberal woman informs everyone that she won't be dating white men anymore.

Groundbreaking information.pic.twitter.com/2lC5Kqm0Qb

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) March 29, 2025

Ridiculous on so many levels, but I'm just going to highlight the exaggerated enunciation — "as a WHiTTTTe woman."

It made me think of this TikTok video criticizing Rachel Zegler ("Snow White") for over-enunciating:

"How far Ms. Ocasio-Cortez can go is a hot topic for many Democrats right now."

"With her youth, charisma, social media skills and political savvy, she is being talked about nowadays as not only the obvious heir to Mr. Sanders as leader of the progressive movement, but as a possible presidential contender for 2028. This both recognizes her potential and feels premature at best.... Her mere existence spins up Republicans to a degree reminiscent of their reaction to Nancy Pelosi in her heyday.... The Fighting Oligarchy tour organized by Mr. Sanders and featuring her as a 'special guest' drew fired-up crowds in numbers worthy of a presidential campaign: about 15,000 in Tempe, Ariz.; 11,000 in Greeley, Colo.; 34,000 in Denver.... Democrats freaked out by Mr. Trump are clamoring for leaders who share their sense of urgency. Fighting Oligarchy, with its revolutionary fervor, is working to scratch that itch.... [A]lthough Mr. Sanders is the tour’s headliner... it is Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, serving as his fresh-faced, supportive warm-up act, who has many Trump-traumatized Democrats dreaming of a counterrevolution...."

Writes Michelle Cottle, in "What Ocasio-Cortez Wants for the Democrats" (NYT).

Her mere existence spins up Republicans!

Meanwhile, Democrats are itchy, and AOC is scratchy.

This is so good, it feels scripted. Not saying it's scripted. Just saying it's so tightly worded and delivered.

Nah, I just increased his exposure. https://t.co/CiCACHrnE0

— Tim Burchett (@timburchett) March 29, 2025

"Do better; this is simply not possible."

Immediately after this video, the 18-year-old intern was right back in playing with your account.

Nobody believes that you are the global top 3 player in between running the federal government and managing world companies.

Do better; this is simply not possible.

— Tom Navarro (@NavarroThinker) March 29, 2025

"At some point, we gotta be upset about this," says Ezra Klein, nervously chuckling.

Yeah? What point?!

Ezra Klein explains how it feels to be a Democrat in under 30 seconds:
Ezra Klein: "The stimulus bill under Obama, that had 3 big headline projects for reinvestment.
High speed rail, smart grid, a nation wide system of interoperable health records. 0 for 3"
Gavin Newsom: "I… pic.twitter.com/Rlq1z8fGRb

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 26, 2025

Via Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, who's put together a nice series of clips and quotes on the theme "The Democratic brand is toxic right now."

This is a theme that gets my tag "Democratic Party in Trumpland."

BUT: Really, the problem Klein chuckles over pre-dates the Trump era. It's the failure of the Obama agenda:  "The stimulus bill under Obama — that had 3 big headline projects for reinvestment. It had high speed rail. It had smart grid. And it had a nation wide system of inter-operable health records.... 0 for 3."

New York City just legalized jaywalking.

The NY Post reports. 

The decriminalization won’t do much to change New Yorkers’ lives — few people faced ticketing for jaywalking even before the change.

Good then. I don't like to see a law that's not enforced lying around waiting to be enforced on someone. Who? Why?

I'm the sort of person who follows rules because they are rules, and I think it's unfair to people like me to get stuck with limitations that are not restricting the freedom of the people who merely factor in the likelihood of getting caught and punished.

We need to worry about "'pretext offenses' — acts that are criminalized to give cops a pretext to stop, arrest or otherwise manage an unruly or dangerous actor," which may be "a license for cops to harass innocent New Yorkers, particularly black and brown ones."

And: "Jaywalking is, as many have claimed, a 'New York tradition.'"