Sunrise — 5:08, 5:27, 5:33, 5:39.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Unpopular opinion but I don’t care about this unless they actually arrest and prosecute the culprits, including Obama."

"You cannot allege a 'treasonous conspiracy' and then do nothing about it. The typical pattern by Republicans since forever is to make these kinds of claims (which I don’t doubt by the way), but to make them on Twitter and Fox News, and never actually bring it to a court of law so that the parties responsible can be held accountable for their crimes. I’m tired of it. Go arrest these people and bring them to justice. Then I’ll care. If you won’t do that then what does any of this matter?"

Writes Matt Walsh, responding to that thread Tulsi Gabbard posted.

Yeah, I'm tired of it too. Of that and a few other things.

"We prefer to have the melody before working on the lyric. We feel that when we have the melody, there are words on the tips of those notes, and we have to find them."

Said Alan Bergman, quoted in "Alan Bergman, Half of a Prolific Lyric-Writing Team, Dies at 99/With his wife, Marilyn, he wrote the words to memorable TV theme songs and the Oscar-winning 'The Way We Were' and 'The Windmills of Your Mind'" (NYT).

I've always been fascinated by the song "The Windmills of Your Mind," and I blogged about it in 2019 when the composer — the man who wrote the notes on the tips of which the Bergmans found the words — Michel Legrand, died.

That post has many versions of the song embedded, but I'll chose just one here, the 1968 Noel Harrison version that I remember as a hit and that I know was heard in — and won an Oscar for — "The Thomas Crown Affair":

My old post ends:

"Academics are unsure if removing soda from SNAP would improve public health."

"Data is scarce: No state has piloted a change, and researchers can’t remove people’s benefits for a study because of the arbitrary harm it might cause. Lisa Harnack, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, found a way to test the concept by finding people who were eligible for SNAP but not enrolled. She created a 'SNAP-like program' that gave some people normal SNAP benefits and gave others similar benefits but excluded soda (participants could still buy whatever other food they wanted with their own money). Her first study found lower calorie intake and improved nutrition among the people who couldn’t purchase soda with their benefits, but her follow-up study did not.... [Another] study found it would probably reduce rates of obesity — but even so, [the researcher said]... 'If you try to solve this problem using SNAP as a lever, so only SNAP people are impacted by it, what we’re likely to do is just increase stigma for people who are trying to make ends meet.'"

From "Should Food Stamps Pay for Soda? Colorado and Texas are among the states aiming to change what food and drink can be bought with SNAP benefits" (NYT).

"Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian extreme adventurer who hurtled to earth from more than 24 miles high in 2012 and became the first human to break the sound barrier while free-falling..."

"... died on Thursday in a paragliding accident along the Adriatic coast in Italy. He was 56....Mr. Baumgartner crashed to the ground a few yards from a swimming pool in the town of Porto Sant’Elpidio, the mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said on Friday. He said that Mr. Baumgartner had become ill during his flight and had lost consciousness by the time of impact in a part of town popular among tourists. An autopsy was to be performed, he said...."

From "Felix Baumgartner, 56, Professional Daredevil, Dies While Paragliding/Nicknamed 'Fearless Felix,' he jumped from the edge of space in 2012" (NYT).

The death-defying dive into a swimming pool — with tourists watching — called to mind the diving horses at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City:

 

"The idea of high-speed rail has a nearly erotic appeal to progressives, who love communal trains over individualized autos..."

"... and think cars are destroying the planet whereas trains can save it. High-speed rail is to transit what windmills are to energy — an environmentally correct, futuristic technology that will always under-deliver.... The current focus is a line between Merced (pop. 93,000) and Bakersfield (413,000).... The original estimated $33 billion cost is now $35 billion for just the scaled-back line, and more than $100 billion and counting for the whole shebang. There is no reason that the feds should pour good money after bad supporting a preposterous project that doesn’t have any national significance. California governor Gavin Newsom — too embarrassed to admit failure or too drunk on visions of European-style rail — remains fully committed. In a statement, he said Trump’s defunding decision is a 'gift to China,' as if Beijing cares whether people get to Bakersfield by car, plane or high-speed rail...."

Writes Rich Lowry, in "Behind the ‘boondoggle’ of Gavin Newsom’s high-speed rail dream" (NY Post).

Why don't people who care about the environment simply stop traveling? Even if the line did connect L.A. to San Francisco, as it was originally sold, what is the need to go back and forth between these 2 cities... or any 2 cities in America? The high-tech solution is not high-speed rail. It's virtual connection. The amorphous interest in appearing somewhere in the flesh does not deserve a taxpayer subsidy. 

"Colbert gets no advertising and late night is a tough spot. Colbert might be No. 1, but who watches late night TV anymore?"

Said an unnamed person who, the NYT Post assures us, knows what he's talking about, quoted in "CBS canned ‘The Late Show’ over tens of millions in financial losses annually — not Stephen Colbert’s politics: sources."

Millions = between $40 million and $50 million a year.

Are these losses because people just don't watch what's "on TV" anymore? We've lost the habit of winding down at the end of the evening with the talk shows the network runs in that time slot? Or is there a problem of Colbert's show leaning to one side politically and spurning the opportunity to appeal to half the people in the country? 

RedBird’s Jeff Shell, the former head of NBCUniversal who will run the network once the [Skydance-Paramount] deal is done, has been crunching the numbers and finding that CBS is a “melting ice cube” with its losses and cost overruns, a source said. The plan is to enhance CBS Sports and invest in “truth-based” news at a network that conservatives have long ripped for its alleged liberal bias.

Are those the scare quotes around "truth-based"? Much as the quotes made me laugh and want to poke fun, I think they are more likely to signify that the Post is quoting Jeff Shell. Same thing with "melting ice cube." I don't think the Post was trying to help us idiots understand that that CBS is not literally a melting ice cube. They were just giving Jeff Shell credit for the turn of phrase. Now, the interesting question becomes what does Shell, who's about to be running the network, think "truth-based" means?

The Post has learned that Ellison is now telling people that with the [Trump's] lawsuit settled the Skydance-Paramount deal will get FCC approval by mid-August.

Ellison = Skydance CEO David Ellison, "the son of Donald Trump pal and tech billionaire Larry Ellison. 

While Ellison is predicting imminent regulatory approval, it will come at a cost: FCC chairman Brendan Carr is likely to demand conditions to remedy what he believes is left-wing news bias in programming that violates agency “public interest” rules that govern local broadcasting as opposed to cable.

More quotation marks. I'm just going to guess that the highly abstract term "public interest" is something in the vicinity of "truth-based." Or... maybe it's something more like the word that got us started on Stephen Colbert — "truthiness."

"Truthiness" was The Word of the Year 2006. Colbert launched it thusly, back when he began his excellent show "The Colbert Report":

And on this show, on this show your voice will be heard... in the form of my voice. 'Cause you're looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I will speak to you in plain simple English.

And that brings us to tonight's word: truthiness.

Now I'm sure some of the Word Police, the wordanistas over at Webster's, are gonna say, "Hey, that's not a word." Well, anybody who knows me knows that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.

ADDED: Here's Colbert, in July 2016, relocated to "The Late Show," talking about his old word "truthiness" and presented the new word "Trumpiness":

"The cool thing is, the more you think about the miracle itself, Father Valera lives in the 19th century. He never came to the U.S. We have no knowledge of him coming here. Never came to Rhode Island."

"And yet, because the doctor called out and called upon his name for help in the situation back in ‘07 on behalf of that little baby, he decided to intervene and ask God for a miracle."

Said Reverend Timothy Reilly of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, quoted in "Pope Leo XIV declares a miracle at Rhode Island hospital, crediting prayer with saving baby’s life in 2007" (NY Post).

The baby, Tyquan Hall, was delivered in Rhode Island and expected to die, but the doctor, Juan Sanchez, who was from Huercal-Overa, Spain, prayed for intercession from his region’s patron, Father Valera Parra, who lived in Huercal-Overa from 1816 to 1889.

Sunrise — 5:25, 5:30, 5:43.

That second photo is the western view, which was more interesting than the eastern view this morning, what with that big chunk of cloud.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Sales [at the city-owned grocery store] were okay at first, but after the pandemic, crime rose and sales began to plummet."

"Police data show assaults, robberies and shoplifting in the immediate vicinity have been on an upward trend since 2020.... At a community meeting last year, Pierson played videos of security incidents so graphic he gave a warning in advance — a naked woman parading through the store throwing bags of chips to the ground, another person urinating in the vestibule and a couple fornicating on the lawn of the library in broad daylight.... [P]olice Maj. Chris Young said that even an 'overwhelming presence' of officers in recent months didn’t significantly decrease incidents.... Part of the problem is the city’s lack of a jail, Young said. The left-leaning council closed the previous facility in 2009 as a cost-saving measure... and so people arrested for minor crimes are quickly released... and head back to the same location, Young said. 'We typically have the same group of offenders every week that are recognizable by face and by name, just loitering and hanging out,' he said. 'A small percentage of people are ruining it for the rest of the community that deserves to go to their grocery store and their library.'"

From "Kansas City poured millions into a grocery store. It still may close. More cities and states are experimenting with the concept of city-owned grocery stores, but these experiments often don’t account for social issues" (WaPo).

This article is, I assume, prompted by Zohran Mamdani's pledge to open 5 city-owned grocery stores in NYC if he is elected mayor.

The Kansas City store lost $885,000 last year and "Despite a recent $750,000 cash infusion from the city, the shelves are almost bare."

"Biden aides look to Fifth Amendment as autopen probe widens/The former president’s allies are seeking legal protections amid fear that they have become the latest targets for political retribution."

Headline at The Washington Post. I'd make that a free-access link, but I only have 4 left to give this month and it's only the 18th. And it's one of these 31-day months, too, so I've got to be extra stingy.

I'll cherry-pick the lawprof talk:

“They have little options here in terms of protecting their interests,” said Jonathan Shaub, who teaches law at the University of Kentucky and has advised previous White Houses on the use of executive privilege. “Some have claimed the Fifth Amendment, even though I don’t think they actually think that they have committed any crimes. But given the language that has been used and the insinuations, I can understand why their counsel would say, ‘Just don’t say anything, because we don’t know what they’re willing to do and what they’re willing to prosecute.’”

You don't think they actually think that they have committed any crimes. But what do they need to believe? Is it enough that they believe that the current administration will do anything to get revenge on political adversaries? Professor Shaub can understand why their counsel would say they should plead the Fifth, but would he advise his clients to plead the Fifth based on the idea of not knowing what the Trump administration is willing to do?

"Meth causes the brain to release exorbitant amounts of dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter. On a ho-hum day..."

"... [Dr. Kristen B. Silvia tells meth addicts], an individual’s dopamine levels could rise to, say, 50. 'If you have the best meal ever, the best sex ever, the best day of your life, you can get your levels up to 100.' When someone uses crack... within seconds their levels rise to 300, she continues, 'or three times the best day of your life. 'But on meth, dopamine levels skyrocket to 1,000 and can remain there for hours: 'No medication can safely compete with that.'..."

From "Upended by Meth, Some Communities Are Paying Users to Quit/Unlike with opioids, there is no medication to suppress cravings for meth and other stimulants. As use soars, hundreds of clinics are trying a radically different approach" (NYT).

"[A]ddiction experts worry that under the Trump administration, CM programs will be difficult to sustain, much less expand to meet the need. Many believe that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, who overcame his heroin addiction with a 12-step program and has praised approaches that threaten to jail people who refuse treatment, would be unlikely to endorse a financial rewards-based strategy...."

It's hard for me to imagine feeling 10 times as good as I have ever felt. I might have 10 times as much of what you're calling "the feel-good neurotransmitter," but that doesn't mean the goodness of the feeling will be multiplied by 10. I don't think feeling good works like that! I once heard someone describe the experience of parachuting from a plane as like having 1,000 orgasms all at once. She was quite enthused, and I immediately said that sounds horrible.

"More than anyone I know, his approach to work and life was Socratic. Questions meant so much to him; he was suspicious of answers, certainly easy ones."

Said the opera director Daniel Fish, quoted in "John Conklin, Designer of Fantastical Opera Sets, Dies at 88/Realizing a childhood dream, he created scenery that was highly conceptual yet playful for the Glimmerglass Festival, New York City Opera and other companies" (NYT).

In an early meeting about the [Bard College production of “Oklahoma!”], “John reached into one of the drawers in his studio and pulled some sparkly fringe, a miniature version of the stuff you see hanging over used-car lots, and asked, ‘What if we hung this over the space?,” Mr. Fish said in an email. “That ‘what if’ was key to John’s creative process.”

"A man who entered an M.R.I. room during a scan in Westbury, N.Y., on Wednesday was pulled into the machine by his chain necklace..."

"... and was hospitalized in critical condition, the authorities said. The man, who is 61, was wearing a 'large metallic chain' around his neck... did not have authorization to enter the room, the authorities said...."

The NYT reports.

UPDATE: The man died the next day.

Why is the Wall Street Journal's big story on Trump behind a paywall?

Are they trying to destroy him or not?

Here's the link if you want to try to use it. I found a way last night, but it's not working for me now. I was going to quote the part about Donald Trump supposedly drawing the figure of a woman with 2 big curves for breasts and the scribbled signature "Donald" as the pubic hair.

Is that in the article or just the detritus of a bad dream? I don't know. There's that paywall. If you want to take down Trump — save the world from the marker-wielding fiend — you've got to show what you've got to everyone, not exploit the occasion for subscriptions.

And if I remember correctly from last night — or was it a dream? — you didn't even show us the drawing. I want to see this famous historical drawing that brought down a President. Has there ever been a drawing like this? 

Here's what I prompted Grok: "Imagine a contest where you have to do a drawing that is supposedly by another American President that would reveal something this bad about him. What would be some entries in the contest? That is, what would it have been possible but terrible for Abe Lincoln to have sketched, etc." I'm sure you could think of funnier ideas that Grok described.

But let's see if I can get Grok to draw that picture Trump supposedly drew but the WSJ did publish (perhaps out of fear of getting "Rathergated"). Oh, no: "Unfortunately I can't generate that kind of image."

ADDED: If you were trying to play up to someone you knew was a pedophile, why would you emphasize a woman's pubic hair? It seems more like a way to call out and needle a pedophile. Try that interpretation, Trumpsters, if the letter turns out to be real.

"CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump..."

"... a deal that looks like bribery. America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons."

Tweets Elizabeth Warren, showing us this clip of Colbert critiquing the $16 million deal:

CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.

America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.

Watch and share his message. pic.twitter.com/Rz7HcWFLYM

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 18, 2025

AND: From last night's show:

"The Wall Street Journal late last night published a counterfeit letter it falsely accused Trump of sending to Jeff Epstein in 2003..."

"... long before law enforcement or the future president discovered Epstein pimped minors. How do I know the letter is false? Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ told me so. You see, it ran a 13,000-word expose on Epstein on December 17, 2023. The piece did not mention Trump. Not once. If the publication had the goods on Trump, it would have exposed him ahead of the 2024 presidential primary season. If the deep state had the goods on Trump, the end of him would have come years ago...."

Writes Don Surber, in "The counterfeit letter on Epstein may end the Wall Street Journal" (Substack).

"In the 19th century, virtuoso pianists, including Adolfo Fumagalli, composed left-handed works to wow audiences during encores. (Sometimes, Fumagalli used his right hand to smoke a cigar.)"

"'They were saying, "You think I’m good with two hands? Wait until you see what I can do with only my weaker one,"' McCarthy said. Around the same time, a disabled pianist was also trying to develop a one-handed repertoire: Géza Zichy, a Hungarian who had lost his right arm in a hunting accident as a teenager, transcribed pieces by his friend Franz Liszt, as well as J.S. Bach and others." 

From "Only 5 Fingers Playing Piano, but the Sound of So Many Hands/Nicholas McCarthy overcame rejection to make a professional career playing the surprisingly vast repertoire for left-hand piano" (NYT).

"The most important figure in the repertoire’s development was Paul Wittgenstein, a promising Austrian pianist, who fought with the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I, alongside his brother Ludwig, the future philosopher. Paul Wittgenstein was shot in battle, and woke up in a hospital to learn that doctors had amputated his right arm. Wittgenstein said later in interviews that he had never contemplated giving up music, and recalled drawing a charcoal keyboard on a crate when he was sent to a Siberian prisoner-of-war camp so that he could practice one-handed. In the decades after his release in a prisoner exchange, Wittgenstein used his family’s wealth to commission composers including Ravel, Paul Hindemith, Sergei Prokofiev and Richard Strauss."

Sunrise — 5:34.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments EXCEPT the cancellation of Stephen Colbert's TV show. I just put up a new post on that subject, so scroll down to the previous post for whatever you've got to say about that. 

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

"I’m sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the recent deal between CBS and Trump that gave him $16 million for nothing."

"Stephen Colbert has been on point and humorous in his criticism of Trump. I hope he finds a home on another network or platform."

That's a comment on the NYT article "CBS Canceling ‘Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ After Next Season/The show will end in May, the network said, calling it 'a purely financial decision.'"

From the article: “'It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,' said the executives, who included George Cheeks, the president of CBS and a co-chief executive of Paramount, CBS’s parent. 'Our admiration, affection and respect for the talents of Stephen Colbert and his incredible team made this agonizing decision even more difficult.'"

"The government has announced it will lower the voting age to 16 for all UK elections in time for the next general election...."

"Including 16- and 17-year-olds in the electorate does not change election outcomes and it does not make elections less representative. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds are just as qualified to vote as other, older voters. Research from Germany and Austria shows that they are able to pick a political party or representative that best represents their views to the same extent as other, slightly older voters. But some things may get better for young people and for democracy overall, especially if young people are taken seriously as voters and receive good education on political issues...."

Writes Christine Huebner, a lecturer in quantitative social sciences at the University of Sheffield, in "What happens when 16-year-olds get the vote? Other countries are already seeing the benefits" (Guardian).

Oh, please don't let this happen in the U.S. As I see it, 16 year olds will get the vote... when they turn 18. There's no problem to fix. By the way, I didn't get to vote until I was 21. 

"Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit."

Said John Bode, head of the Corn Refiners Association, quoted in "Trump's Coke push will cost thousands of farm jobs, corn group warns" (Axios).

Oh, that's rich — we're supposed to feel sorry for the folks who make high fructose corn syrup. 

"The Justice Department’s civil rights chief has asked a federal judge to sentence a Louisville police officer convicted in the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor to one day in jail..."

"... a stunning reversal of Biden-era efforts to address racial disparities in local law enforcement. Last year, a federal jury in Kentucky convicted Brett Hankison, the officer, of one count of violating Ms. Taylor’s civil rights by discharging several shots through Ms. Taylor’s window during a drug raid that went awry. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced next week...."

The NYT reports.

Caught on camera.

1. "Coldplay’s ‘kiss cam’ zeroes in on mortified tech CEO Andy Byron and alleged HR-chief mistress Kristin Cabot" (NY Post)("Oh, what? Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy").

2. "Video shows boy, 7, being kidnapped at gunpoint — as dad runs and hides: 'Hell yeah I ran'" (NY Post)("I ran im thinking they tryna rob me not take my damn baby").

"Like the singer and songwriter Bobby Darin, with whom she was romantically involved until her father chased him off with a gun when she was in her late teens..."

"... Ms. Francis reached out beyond her teenage audience, recording material that made her a natural in Las Vegas as well as in nightclubs like the Copacabana in New York. She was also a sought-after entertainer on television variety shows. She briefly tried performing before teenage audiences, but she found that she did not care for the experience. 'I always remember receiving much more applause from teenagers when I was introduced than at any other time during the show — especially after my closing number,' she wrote in her memoir. 'After my name was announced and the squeals of delight subsided, it was downhill all the way.'"

From "Connie Francis, Whose Ballads Dominated ’60s Pop Music, Dies at 87/Ms. Francis, who had a natural way with a wide variety of material, ruled the charts with songs like 'Who’s Sorry Now' and 'Where the Boys Are.'"

Here she is, sublimely out of style in 1969 (on "The Ed Sullivan Show"):

It's perfectly lovely to be square. She was adored on TikTok just this past year.

Watched last night, not chosen by me: 2 TV shows from 1956.

Things I asked Grok:

"Unlike the millennial generation — which largely absorbed technology as destiny, first in its techno-utopian promises, later in its gigified disappointments..."

"... these Gen Z refuseniks are not trying to reform the system. They’re walking away from it. That’s why the 'No Kings' rallies often look like the world’s largest retiree convention. This new group’s politics, to the extent that it has any, are not oriented toward revolution or regulation, but toward restraint, retreat and restoration. They want silence. They want limits. And if there is any hope of clawing back a shared reality from the hall of mirrors that is the modern internet, it might lie with them. We can only hope."

Writes Ryan Zickgraf, in "Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ at 40: Truer than ever/The cultural critic saw it all coming. And yet, in Gen Z, there are signs of hope" (WaPo).

"And I’m still amazed by how quickly I got used to being naked in front of others, how little I cared, how little notice others took."

"I thought I would be stared at, regarded as an embarrassing old woman showing off in public. Pottering in my garden this morning, deadheading geraniums and hanging out the washing, I was itching to take off my nightie and stand there in the altogether, but I have close neighbours; even next door’s cat was giving me the side-eye. Living with my 40-year-old son, I certainly don’t intend to parade around top and bottomless indoors any time soon, but I have invited a friend to join me on Brighton’s nudist beach, which is very near where I live. Swimwear seems so unnecessary to me these days...."

Writes Elaine Kingett, in "I’m 75 and hate my body. Will my first naturist holiday help? The writer Elaine Kingett used to love her body but that changed after a heart attack, breast cancer and the death of her husband. Can a ‘clothes optional’ break in Crete kickstart a reconciliation?" (London Times).

"A 23-year-old unemployed man living with his parents in Chongqing... told me: 'I hate women, though I still want to fall in love, just a little bit.'"

"He has never been in a relationship, he said, and hopes Revenge on Gold Diggers could teach men like him how to behave in love. After graduating from college, [he] worked briefly in an electronics assembly factory and as a phone service salesman. He quit both jobs because of health reasons and boredom, he said, and spends most of his time online.... [He] said that his opinions about women and feminism were shaped by social media, and that he sometimes regretted and deleted some of his harsh comments. But other times he can’t help but fight with women online, he said. Like many of his peers, [he] sees himself as doubly oppressed, both by women and by the government. 'The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government now inhabit a different world from ours. They are blind to our real situation,' he said...."

From "'Who Killed Love?’ A Video Game Plays to Male Resentment in China. A popular and contentious game, Revenge on Gold Diggers, sheds light on misogyny, inequality and the feeling among many men that they are economic victims" (NYT)(free-access link).

"The search for a liberal Joe Rogan has led Democrats to an unlikely candidate: Jaime Harrison, their former party chair."

"Harrison will launch At Our Table on Thursday. It’s an interview show he’s been recording from his home in South Carolina and from the road, where he frequently spends time with the party’s once and future stars. 'Civic education in America is at an all-time low,' Harrison told Semafor this week, shortly before meeting up with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, the latest ambitious Democrat to visit Harrison’s home state ahead of its 2028 presidential primary...."

Semafor nonsense.

That's David Weigel, by the way.

If there's ever going to be a "liberal Joe Rogan," it's not going to happen that way.

In my opinion there is one — but only one — way to find a liberal Joe Rogan: He's right there. It's Joe Rogan. Let me help you in 3 steps: 1. See that Joe Rogan, as he already is, is pretty damned liberal, 2. Persuade Joe Rogan to lean further in the liberal direction on various issues where the liberal position is genuinely appealing, 3. Adjust your own vision of what it means to be liberal, so that it isn't gummed up with illiberal junk that has turned the public away from you, and maybe then you'll be able to see that Joe Rogan is more or less on your side, and, more important, maybe then you won't be so pathetically desperate to find "a Joe Rogan" to save you from the unpopularity that you deserve.

But, aside from all that, might Jaime Harrison do a good podcast? I'll cherry-pick from the little interview at the link to give you a sense of what he has to say:

WaPo shines a light on the ghost pipe... which looks familiar.

Screen shot:

Here's the link to my post from last year, and here's the WaPo article. Excerpt:

“Ghost pipe is the bee’s knees for anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, migraines, muscle spasms and just all the things,” says a popular forager on [TikTok]. “It makes you feel very Zen and grounded.”

“Basically, it will solve all your problems,” a user whose account is dedicated to holistic healing says in a video that has been watched more than 17 million times....

Ghost pipe became widely popular in the mid-19th century, thanks to a group of physicians known as the Eclectics, who rejected the punishing medical practices of their day — such as bloodletting and mercury-induced purging — in favor of botanical remedies. Eclectic doctors administered ghost pipe as a tonic, sedative and antispasmodic. The odd flower also blossomed in the popular imagination. In 1890, the cover of Emily Dickinson’s debut book of poetry featured a painting of the plant; the poet called ghost pipe “the preferred flower of life.”...

I was a little late getting out for the sunrise this morning.

So the first 3 pictures are Meade's:

Those are from 4:56, 5:18, 5:38. I finally made it out there for these, from 5:47 and 5:49:

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"The only thing that might make a quiz show seem political is if you’re living in an era where there’s one side of the political spectrum that benefits from depreciating knowledge, the importance of knowledge and fact itself.”

"And I’m afraid that is happening in a lot of fields today. Government policy used to be based on settled scientific consensus in fields — just basic things, like climate is changing, or vaccines help prevent disease. This should just be base-line stuff. And now, apparently, it’s very partisan to believe either of those things. Legal facts like birthright citizenship, or facts from the headlines like who won the 2020 election — these are not just contested things; now they are litmus tests for a certain kind of tribalism, and that’s terrible for a society. A society can’t stand with that kind of disagreement over what is true and what is error, and honestly, one great thing about quiz shows is we are a little microenvironment where these facts do have right answers and wrong answers. And they all get resolved in a matter of seconds. Someone will buzz in, and they are either right or wrong."

Writes Ken Jennings, in "'Jeopardy!' Is a Reminder That Facts Are Fun — and Essential/According to the host Ken Jennings, trivia is overlooked as a 'great social force'" (NYT).

Only "one side of the political spectrum" is "depreciating knowledge, the importance of knowledge and fact itself"? Or does it just seem that way from the point of view of the other side?

And the reason "Jeopardy!” is "a little microenvironment where these facts do have right answers and wrong answers" is because only unquestionable facts can be used as answers on the show. It's not that there isn't other material — facts yet to be nailed down and unknown and unknowable things of all kinds — it's that the other material isn't the stuff of "Jeopardy!" answers.

Yes, it's nice to appreciate the solidity of the facts that do make it onto the answer board, but that's not a basis for maligning the people who doubt and debate about what's true.

Trump denounces his "PAST supporters" who "have bought into this 'bullshit'" he calls "the Jeffrey Epstein hoax."

These people are "pay dirt" hit by Democrats. They are "weaklings" who "do the Democrats work," and he doesn't even "want their support anymore."

Here's the full text, from Trump, this morning at Truth Social:

The Radical Left Democrats have hit pay dirt, again! Just like with the FAKE and fully discredited Steele Dossier, the lying 51 'Intelligence' Agents, the Laptop from Hell..."which the Dems swore had come from Russia (No, it came from Hunter Biden’s bathroom!), and even the Russia, Russia, Russia Scam itself, a totally fake and made up story used in order to hide Crooked Hillary Clinton’s big loss in the 2016 Presidential Election, these Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at - It’s all they have - They are no good at governing, no good at policy, and no good at picking winning candidates. Also, unlike Republicans, they stick together like glue. Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bullshit,' hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years. I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore! Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

"I’ve done everything openly, nothing in secret. If it makes some people happy to question it, it has made a lot of other people happier who believe it."

Said Fauja Singh, in 2016, quoted in "Fauja Singh, Marathon Runner at an Advanced Age, Is Dead/Competing in London in 2011, he claimed to be 100, though his exact age remained a mystery. 'I run while talking to God,' he said in explaining his endurance" (NYT).

Singh’s case became emblematic of the difficulties race officials faced in determining the ages of elderly runners, especially when the athletes were born in places where birth certificates were unavailable or lost during tumultuous times.

“People in the third world are at a disadvantage for being taken seriously,” Harmander Singh told The New York Times in 2016. 

Still, Fauja Singh had his supporters among fans and officials. Mr. Smith, the Ontario Masters official, said, “As far as I’m concerned, he was legit.” But, he added: “They just can’t start allowing world records when there is no birth certificate. It opens a whole can of worms.”

"... Mr. Haskell paid $500 to several day laborers to haul away several heavy black plastic trash bags from his home.... When they looked inside one of them, they found human body parts, prompting them to return the bags..."

"... and money to Mr. Haskell, whom they photographed — along with the bags — and reported to the police, prosecutors said. That same afternoon, investigators said, Mr. Haskell was seen in security camera footage removing a trash bag from the trunk of his Tesla and disposing of it in a dumpster in a parking lot in nearby Encino, Calif. A person sifting through the dumpster the next day found a beheaded torso.... During an initial criminal proceeding in December 2023, Mr. Haskell appeared shirtless in court, wearing a smock intended to prevent inmates from using it to hang themselves. At the time, his lawyer told Fox News that the Sheriff’s Department had forced him to appear that way, creating speculation that Mr. Haskell might harm himself...."

From "Son of Ex-Hollywood Agent, Jailed in 3 Murders, Dies by Suicide, D.A. Says/Samuel Haskell, 37, was accused of dismembering his wife and his in-laws. He was the son of Sam Haskell III, an Emmy-winning film producer and veteran talent agent" (NYT).

The father, we're told, "had several A-list clients, including George Clooney, Ray Romano and Whoopi Goldberg," was a producer of "several films and shows about Dolly Parton," and headed "the Miss America Organization until... he resigned amid reports that he and other pageant leaders had made misogynistic and derogatory comments about the competition’s contestants." The link on "resigned" goes to the 2017 HuffPo article, "The Miss America Emails: How The Pageant’s CEO Really Talks About The Winners/Internal correspondence reveals name-calling, slut-shaming and fat-shaming in emails between the Miss America CEO, board members and a pageant writer."

"Ms. Green described Mr. McMichael as an experienced farmer who had worked with livestock since his teenage years."

"The land where Mr. McMichael was raising livestock, including cattle and lambs, had been in the family for three generations, Ms. Green said. Plans for the future of the farm remain uncertain, she said. 'Farming was Bradley’s dream,' Ms. Green said. 'He died doing something he loved, and he cared very much for his livestock.'"

From "Oklahoma Farmer Killed by Water Buffaloes He Had Just Bought, Police Say/The farm where Bradley McMichael, 47, died has been in his family for three generations. His fiancée described him as an experienced farmer who had worked with livestock since his teenage years" (NYT).

The expression "He died doing something he loved" has come up a few times on this blog. I'm not sure I've ever discussed it — though I've had long conversations about it in real life — but it comes up in the comments, for example, in the thread accompanying "Indian stuntman dies as he uses only his hair to cross Teesta River" and "Choking to death on pancakes in an amateur pancake eating contest and why the Heimlich maneuver and mechanical suction didn't work."

Looking for those examples, I came across this from a beloved but long-gone commenter:

"When Mr. Heiman, 72, began his career in the 1960s, whey was pumped down a river, spread on a field or fed to pigs."

"In other words, it was waste, and the only goal was to get rid of it as cheaply as possible. Times have changed. 'In the last decade or so, there are times when cheese is the byproduct of cheese production, and the cheese plants make more money off the whey production,' said Mike McCully, a dairy industry consultant...."

From "America’s Protein Obsession Is Transforming the Dairy Industry/Whey, the liquid byproduct of cheese making, was once considered waste. Now it is a key ingredient in the protein powders that Ozempic users and weight lifters are downing in ever-greater amounts" (NYT).

As Jesus said, "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first."

"Whether you are touching up the 'Mona Lisa,' 'reviewing' novels or doing logic puzzles" — using A.I. — "you are engaging in the very human drive to play."

"As I’ve watched people adopt these systems, what I’ve seen is mostly people playing with art and language. If you go through the history of these bots, you see poetry, fiction and all kinds of little genre experiments like this as a constantly recurring theme.... OpenAI also advertised one of its early models with an image produced by the prompt 'astronaut riding a horse.' The natural response to this image is to think, 'Cool!'...  We ought to think about A.I. as an entertainment-first system, before anything else. Would you replace all of primary education with 'Sesame Street'? Or decide government policy with SimCity? It’s not an insult to the beloved children’s program or computer game to say no. The lesson is simple: We might be taking A.I. too seriously."

Writes Leif Weatherby, director of the NYU Digital Theory Lab, in "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Have Fun With A.I" (NYT).

I like the name Leif Weatherby, and he probably didn't write his own headline, but its reference point — "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" — is a movie that ends with the destruction of all of humanity. So are we taking A.I. too seriously or not seriously enough?

One might interpret the movie title to mean the bomb is going to destroy us all before long so there's no use worrying. It's the world we're stuck in, so love the reality that exists. It's the old: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.

Is that Dr. Weatherby's point?

***

Grok, what's the origin and history of the adage Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die?

The phrase draws heavily from two passages in the Bible: 

Ecclesiastes 8:15 (Old Testament, c. 3rd–2nd century BCE): In the King James Version, it reads, "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry." This verse, attributed to King Solomon, reflects on the futility of life and the value of enjoying simple pleasures amidst its uncertainties. 

Isaiah 22:13 (Old Testament, c. 8th century BCE): This passage states, "Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die." It appears in a context of rebuke, where the people of Jerusalem are criticized for indulging in revelry instead of repenting during a time of crisis.

6 a.m.

Sunrise — 5:10, 5:11, 5:31, 5:36.

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"I just started punching it in the head as hard as I could. And he had let go and and then grabbed me again. And the second time that he let go and grabbed me..."

"... he had drug me underneath the water. And he like shook my leg around.... Whenever he let go, I had started running up. And I had gotten up out of the water."

From "Florida teen saves herself from alligator that dragged her underwater: ‘I just started punching'" (NY Post).

"To celebrate our fifth anniversary, my college boyfriend and I went to Spain— we broke up a few weeks later."

"He’d booked the hotel without checking if it was within walkable distance of Barcelona Center (it wasn’t), and our room had two single beds. The room reservation wasn’t the cause of the breakup, but it didn’t help. Two years later, I was in Spain again. This time, lying on a hammock in an Ibizan Airbnb with a two-month situationship. We’d booked the trip just over a month after our first date; but, under the setting Ibizan sun, my once-exciting prospective lover was a cold and grumpy disappointment. When it ended, again, just weeks later, I blamed the vacation for our ultimate demise. I swore off Spain as a romantically cursed destination...."

Writes Laura Pitcher, in "How to Survive the Couples Trip" (The Cut).

She got the new boyfriend out in the sun and he became a cold and grumpy disappointment. Better to find out sooner than later. Sounds like vacationing speeds things up.

"From Edison films catalog: Four young ladies, in their nightgowns, are having a romp. One of the pillows gets torn, and the feathers fly all over the room...1897."

Found in the Library of Congress collection at YouTube when I was looking for some film of Annie Oakley, to use in the previous post. I did find an Annie Oakley clip — from 1894 — but I just didn't think it was interesting enough. But here.

Maybe you think that's more interesting than 4 young ladies, in their nightgowns, having a romp in 1897." To me, it's more interesting that, in the first decade of movie-making, the idea of girls pillow-fighting came up. Filming a famous performer is obviously something you'd want to do. 

"Five Catholic saints are on the list, including Elizabeth Ann Seton.... However, there is not a single female athlete, unless you count sharpshooter Annie Oakley."

From "Who’ll be in Trump’s hero garden? There are a few surprises. The list of nearly 250 includes the famous, the obscure and, in some cases, the intentionally controversial" (WaPo)(free-access link).

Young and old... good luck and bad...

Screen grab from the sidebar at The Guardian. The stories are here — "Gus pulled the arrow out of his head by himself and immediately went to see his mother, who was vacuuming inside... He kept saying, 'Mom, am I dying? Am I going to leave you? I don’t want to leave you yet'" — and here — "It is with great sadness that we can confirm our icon of humanity and powerhouse of positivity Fauja Singh has passed away in India."

"Trump is 47 and Woods is 49, making this a surprisingly age-appropriate celebrity pairing."

I'm reading "Tiger Woods and Vanessa Trump: MAGA Dating Drama, Explained" (Intelligencer).

I wonder what else they're not doing wrong.

"Brooker says it reminds him of the orcas who have recently been spotted wearing salmon on their heads like a hat — a behaviour last reported in the '70s."

From "Chimps are sticking grass and sticks in their butts, seemingly as a fashion trend/The new phenomenon appears to be a fresh spin on an old fad of wearing grass in the ear" (CBC).

ADDED: This story made me ask ChatGPT "What is the origin and history of the phrase 'Your ass is grass'?" It couldn't pinpoint the origin, but this part of the answer was amusingly AI:

🔹 Linguistic Features:

• Ass: A longstanding vulgar slang term for a person, especially in a demeaning or aggressive context.

• Grass: Used metaphorically here as something easily cut down, disposable, or unresisting.

"Democrats and a union representing Education Department workers warned of dire consequences."

From the New York Times article...

I made that screen grab because I thought the choice of photograph was tragicomic. I'm just going to assume — I can't tell from the caption — that the building houses the Department of Education. It's poetic — no? — the dying sunlight, the leafless trees. It says... dire consequences.

"I feel most Muslim when I am stunned by a moment of clarity within my own contradictions."

Writes Hanif Abdurraqub, in "Zohran Mamdani and Mahmoud Khalil Are in on the Joke/What it feels like to laugh when the world expects you to disappear" (The New Yorker).

Beyond whatever disconnects may exist in my faith practice, I still feel deeply connected to the ummah—the body, the community—and the responsibilities that this connection carries. A Hadith that I love, and which underpins many of my actions, states that “the believers in their mutual kindness, compassion, and sympathy are just like one body. When one of the limbs suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.”...

I have been talking with my Muslim friends about the specific brand of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment that has recently arisen—or re-arisen, depending on how one chooses to look at it—in America. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani... will almost certainly....

At the Potato Café...

... you can talk all night.

"Last year, by some estimates, Ukraine’s factories turned out more than three million drones...."

"The drones that I examined were remarkably simple: a lightweight square frame, four propellers, a video camera, a battery-powered motor, and room for a bomb. The attack drones, known as F.P.V.s, for 'first-person view,' are guided by an operator watching a video screen that shows what the drone is seeing; other members of the unit monitor feeds from reconnaissance drones.... The Russians are terrorizing the Ukrainians with drone attacks of their own. Towns and hamlets have been largely pulverized along the front lines and for miles beyond; even American air defenses are mostly useless, because setting them up invites an immediate Russian attack. Iranian-made Shahed drones, capable of carrying large warheads long distances, have pummelled Kyiv and other cities with hundreds of strikes. Under the constant threat of attack, the Ukrainians have found it difficult to supply their front lines, and evacuation is sometimes impossible. The prevalence of drones appears to have given the advantage to the defense. Along the seven-hundred-mile front, soldiers on both sides are huddled in fortified trenches, separated by a no man’s land known as the 'gray zone.' With drones circling day and night, surprise attack is impossible, movement suicidal. If soldiers venture out, they are attacked immediately by drones or artillery...."

Writes Dexter Filkins, in "Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War With global conflicts increasingly shaped by drones and A.I., the American military risks losing its dominance" (The New Yorker).

"For 35 years, Bill Dilworth tended a Manhattan loft filled with dirt, otherwise known as 'The New York Earth Room,' a monumental artwork by Walter De Maria.... 280,000 pounds of dark, chocolaty soil, about two feet deep..."

"... on the second floor of an early artists’ co-op in a former manufacturing building on Wooster Street, in the heart of SoHo. It was installed in 1977, in what used to be the Heiner Friedrich Gallery, and it was intended to be temporary, a three-month-long exhibit.... [T]he artists who colonized the building and the area have mostly moved on, and the neighborhood, like the city itself, has evolved. 'That’s what makes the Earth Room so radical,' Mr. Dilworth said.... 'It’s here, and it remains the same.'... He watered and raked the soil, plucking the odd weed or mushroom. (The mushrooms were edible, and delicious, by Mr. Dilworth’s account.)... 'I found the art world to be something that doesn’t appeal to me.... This is about as close as I’m comfortable getting to it. But making art has been vital to me always. So how do you make art and not be in the art world? This job allows me to stay tuned to my own art-making — just by the freedom of thought and all that.'"

From "Bill Dilworth, Caretaker of ‘The New York Earth Room,’ Is Dead at 70/For decades, he tended a SoHo loft filled with dirt, made by the conceptual artist Walter De Maria. People made pilgrimages to see it — and Mr. Dilworth, its magnetic steward" (NYT).

"I made every decision," says Joe Biden, but how would he know, and how could his statement ease our doubts?

The NYT reports on its 10-minute interview with Biden and tells us that "Mr. Biden said that he had orally granted all the pardons and commutations issued at the end of his term, calling President Trump and other Republicans 'liars' for claiming his aides had used an autopen to do so without his authorization."

So he's using the word "liars" without knowing if people are lying. It makes me want to just call him a liar and be done with it. If the aides were using the autopen somewhere outside of his presence, how would he necessarily know what they were doing? He's saying trust me — trust me or else I'll call you a liar.

The article continues: "'I made every decision,' Mr. Biden said in a phone interview on Thursday, asserting that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature on the clemency warrants because 'we’re talking about a whole lot of people.'"

How does he know he made every decision? We're not liars if we simply doubt that he had the mental capacity to know what was going on. What sort of decision-making was it? Am I a liar if I presume he did nothing more than rubber-stamp whatever was recommended by the staff?

"I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up."

Said — guess who? — Barack Obama.

This is another one of those statements to fundraisers that you weren't supposed to hear, but they manage to leak out somehow.

In this case, the statement was "exclusively obtained by CNN."

The reputedly amiable but often crabby ex-President also said: "You know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something. Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, 'You know what, that person has the right to speak.' … What’s needed now is courage."

What have they got that I ain't got? 

Obama's remarks made me think of this "printed, foldable card that can fit right into your ID badge holder" given out by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, developed by the Office of Social Impact and Belonging:

"Camp Mystic’s leader got a ‘life threatening’ flood alert. They evacuated an hour later."

"Much of what made the camp special also put it at heightened risk as the river rose to record levels, a [Washington] Post investigation found."

That's a free-access link.

Excerpt: "As the water encroached, the teenage counselors, cut off from others, were left to make frantic life-and-death decisions. They began rousting girls from their cabins, the younger campers screaming or crying as they waited for help or were ushered to higher ground. Dick Eastland, 70, and other staffers eventually realized that the Bubble Inn and Twins cabins, which held the littlest girls — some as young as 8 — were in the most danger, Eastland Jr. said. A swirling eddy of water had formed from two directions...."

"Kids: They’re pint-size spies. They’re little data processors, soaking things up and spitting them back, until one day they’ve grokked enough to knock you into the gutter."

Writes Dwight Garner, in "The Future Looks Dark, but Familiar, in Gary Shteyngart’s New Book/'Vera, or Faith' follows a 10-year-old girl navigating family drama and a dystopian America" (NYT).

1. Garner, the name, is not a "garner (the word!)" spotting, within the logic of the Althouse blog.

2. "One day they’ve grokked enough" might be one of the last appearances of "grok," the verb, in this Musk-permeated word.

3. I just finished reading "Vera, or Faith" last night. That's why I'm reading a review of it this morning. The quote I pulled from the review was chosen because of that "grokked."

4. About that dystopia — to quote the book — "[T]he states are having their constitutional conventions. And these conventions will decide whether to give an 'enhanced vote'... counting for five-thirds of a regular vote to so-called 'exceptional Americans,' those who landed on the shores of our continent before or during the Revolutionary War but were exceptional enough not to arrive in chains."

5. Lots of novels use that child as pint-size spy idea, don't they? I think of "What Maisie Knew" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." You can think of more. Or ask Grok. But whether the character is a child or not, many novels make their plot out a character gradually putting clues together and figuring something out. The thing to be figured out may not be an interesting story at all — who killed X, who is X's father/mother, why did X leave town all these many years ago. The story is the unlocking of the mystery. But to make the central character a child is to blend this mystery-solving with the mystery-solving that is every child's life: What do words mean? What are adults doing? Where do I fit into all this?

6. "Vera, or Faith" (commission earned).

Sunrise — 5:25, 6:02.

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"The Secret Service failed to prevent the assassination attempt against Donald Trump last year at his Pennsylvania campaign rally, according to a Senate committe[e] report..."

"... which accuses the agency of a botched operation snarled by communication fumbles and the repeated denial of extra security assets at a time when the former president faced heightened threats on his life.... The report shed no new light about the assailant’s motives — which remain a mystery to investigators one year on — but painted a picture of an expansive security detail that was erroneously left in the dark as an assassination attempt unfolded. The committee identified several Secret Service failures to properly disseminate information about a suspicious person — later determined to be Crooks — and his whereabouts. Its investigation also uncovered conflicting reports about who knew what, and when...."

From "Secret Service failed to stop Trump assassination attempt, Senate report says/The report from the Homeland Security Committee accuses the Secret Service of fumbling communications and denying extra security at the Pennsylvania rally last year" (WaPo).

I clicked into the comments...

"When Donald Trump’s megabill passed the Senate, consummating nearly a half-year of aggressively reactionary policymaking by the 47th president, a colleague commented that 'it’s like the Biden presidency never happened.'"

"That’s true in the sense that between Trump’s executive orders and the megabill, it’s hard to find a single stone unmoved from where he found it when he took office in January. But on reflection, it might be quite literally true. The country, and even the Democratic Party, would very likely have been in better condition today had Trump been reelected in 2020 over Joe Biden...."

Writes Ed Kilgore, in "America Would Be Better Off If Trump Won in 2020" (Intelligencer).

How many of you are getting ready to comment: What do you mean if?!

Anyway... Kilgore plunges into his fantasy. Excerpt: