"May God watch over our Afghan people. War, earthquakes, poverty — every hardship is a test from God."

Said a man named Said Meer, one of many Afghans who are returning to Afghanistan after being expelled from Pakistan, quoted in "Earthquake in Afghanistan Leaves More Than 800 Dead/The quake, near the border with Pakistan, injured more than 2,500 people in mountainous areas that rescue workers took hours to reach" (NYT).

We're told it was a 6.0-magnitude earthquake.

"Lots of melodrama plus clowning. At one point there was a bear on stage. Not a real bear of course..."

"... a man in a bear costume, but it was very large. It’s kind of pretty funny. In the text of the play, the stage direction is 'exit, pursued by a bear.'"

Things I texted, using voice-to-text, during intermission, when asked, from afar, "how is the play."

We'd gone out to Spring Green again, for a wonderful production of "A Winter's Tale."

Here's the Capital Times review. Excerpted sentence: "The transition from buttoned-up Sicilia to wild and woolly Bohemia — dressed by Raquel Barreto like cowboys and the ensemble from the 1960s musical 'Hair' — allows viewers to relax into the story." That transition comes right after intermission. As we drove home afterwards, Meade made that same comparison. It was like "Hair"... but the actors didn't get naked nor did they urge us to join them on stage.

"As another man who once worked with me declares himself saddened by my beliefs on gender and sex, I thought it might be useful to compile a list..."

"... for handy reference. Which of the following do you imagine makes actors and directors who aren’t involved with the HBO reboot of Harry Potter so miserable?"

J.K. Rowling has a useful list, at X, where she also engages with many of her commenters.

It's a long list, so go to the link. I'll just highlight one item, the belief "[t]hat gay people shouldn’t be pressured to include the opposite sex in their dating pools, nor should they be smeared as ‘genital fetishists’ when they don’t?"

"The New Dream Guy Is Beefy, Placid and … Politically Ambiguous/Amid pitched debates about masculinity, the 'himbo' stands stoically above it all."

What??!

That's a headline in the NYT for a piece by Casey Michael Henry (a writer who's got a novel called "Not Recommended").

Excerpt: "Calls have proliferated for a left-wing parallel to Joe Rogan.... Consider, for instance, Zohran Mamdani’s surprise win in the New York City mayoral primary, which came with the strong support of the young male vote. A key part of Mamdani’s strategy was finding vessels for an uncomplicated message about affordability, including a few men who could be described, and who might describe themselves, as 'himbos.' The candidate was endorsed by Hasan Piker, the leftist pinup, marathon livestreamer and co-founder of a clothing line called Himbo Fitness. Joshua Citarella, a bodybuilding enthusiast and the host of the left-wing show 'Doomscroll,' facilitated a fund-raising panel. The comedian Stavros Halkias, a heterodox Bernie Bro who could be called a 'himbo' of a more freewheeling, bacchanalian variety, filmed an Instagram endorsement. There were times when Mamdani’s praetorian guard of male influencers looked like an Ultimate Fighting Championship undercard or at least the set of 'The Man Show.'"

Here's what the more freewheeling, bacchanalian himbo looks like:

"Despots want science that has practical results. They’re afraid that basic knowledge will expose their false claims.

Said Paul R. Josephson, an emeritus professor of history at Colby College and author of a book on totalitarian science, quoted in "Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump’s Attacks on Science/Authoritarians have long feared and suppressed science as a rival for social influence. Experts see President Trump as borrowing some of their tactics" (NYT)(free-access link).

Analysts say authoritarians and their students fear science in part because its feats — unlocking the universe, ending plagues, saving millions of lives — can form bonds of public trust that rival or exceed their own.

“Science is a source of social power,” said Daniel Treisman, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It always poses a potential threat.”

ADDED: Note that we've got historians purporting to see something in present-day politics. Their topic is science and politics, but are they being scientific? What is the science of historians seeing patterns that yield useful fuel to political arguments? Perhaps it's true that "Despots want science that has practical results." But don't they also want history that has practical results?

Scroll down one post to see a photo of a crane on whose head you can see the head of a goose. One can "see" a lot of things. There are patterns everywhere. But the pattern I've seen the most in all my studies, scientific and imaginative, is that people see what they want to see.

The sandhill crane would like to be seen as a goose or duck.

Photo by Meade. The white duck/goose head shape pops as the dark beak and the true head shape recede.

I asked Grok if there's any writing on the topic of this head-shape camouflage on the sandhill crane and it "searched extensively" and told me that I seem to have made "a unique observation." How can that be, with all the birdwatching that goes on?! I can't believe it. The fake head marking is so obvious!

"We have each had the honor and privilege of serving as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.... Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the C.D.C...."

"We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations.... What Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months — culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago — is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced. Secretary Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven 'treatments' while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe.... This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American.... The C.D.C. is not perfect. What institution is?"

From "We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health" (NYT). The piece is signed by William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle P. Walensky, and Mandy K. Cohen — all former directors or acting directors of the CDC.

"You know what Addison Ray said, taste is a privilege... I thought that it was one of the most elegant self-aware things that a pop star has ever said to me in an interview."

"She was locating herself as a person who, when she was 16, 17, 18, did not have access to a lot of cultural product outside the very obvious mainstream. Didn't know how or where to dig and had this kind of life force urge to get out of the circumstance that she was in. And in moments like that, you can't necessarily be like, I want to be artful, I want to be weird, I have unusual perspective. You're just like, how do I get outta here as fast as possible? The the speediest route and for her becoming a TikTok star and kind of being very relentless about like, I'm on every trending audio, anything that's, anything that's viral I'm participating in that was her speed run through the internet and now she's like, now I can have taste."

So said Jon Caramanica on yesterday's episode of the NYT podcast "The Daily," which was titled "The Summer in Culture." (Transcript and audio at Podscribe.)

Caramanica he written about that interview back in June, in "TikTok Made Addison Rae Famous. Pop Made Her Cool. The onetime social media superstar has re-emerged as the most surprising rookie pop star of the year."

Annoyingly, the word "privilege" does not appear in the article. But I am seeing "taste is a luxury":

“When I reflect back on that time,” she said, “I’ve recognized how much choice and taste is kind of a luxury. I was definitely strategic with it.... It was a lot about like, ‘How am I just going to get out of here?’ It wasn’t about like, ‘Let me show the intricacies of myself right now.’” Pursuing her own taste, whatever that might have been, wasn’t an option — “a sacrifice that had to be made,” she said.

"Luxury" and "taste" are not synonyms, but the slippage from "luxury" to "taste" seems to have occurred in the mind of Caramanica. What is the more interesting idea — "Taste is a privilege" or "Taste is a luxury"? "Taste is a luxury" seems more like what it looks like it means in context: She was in a hurry. "Taste is a privilege" sounds more like something they'd teach about in a fancy college, full of deep political and sociological meaning. "Taste is a privilege" is a luxury for those who are not in a hurry.

ADDED AFTERTHOUGHT: Someone in a hurry could use AI to impose taste on a musical composition.

***

Also in that podcast is some "discourse" — they call it that — about shorts. My old topic: Men in shorts.

"There’s a strain of rabies where the animals get very, very friendly..."

"... [a] family saw a raccoon that kind of showed up on their front step and he was sick and he was so cute and wanted to be petted. And you know when raccoons aren’t barring their teeth they are pretty cute."

Said a health official quoted in "Outbreaks of rabies seem to be rising across the U.S., CDC surveillance shows/The CDC's rabies team says it's tracking 15 different likely outbreaks from New York to Oregon" (NBC News)(citing 6 deaths from rabies in the U.S. in the past 12 months).

"The family petted and fed the animal until it died. They called animal services to pick up the body 'and thank God they did, because when they sent the brain out to be tested, it was positive, and so the whole family had to get vaccinated.... Oh, my gosh, they never would have known if they hadn’t called animal services.'"

Sunrise — 5:57, 6:22, 6:25.

Write about whatever you want in the comments. The third photo is by Meade. One and 2 are by me.

"The submarine sandwich’s... phallic yet floppy nature can also be seen in this context as a mocking reflection of the administration’s strutting, performative, hollow machismo...."

"'He thought it was funny. Well, he doesn’t think it’s funny today,' declared Ms. Pirro, playing the nation’s sputtering high school vice principal sick of all these disrespectful kids, in a video announcing that Mr. Dunn would be charged with felony assault.... Attorney General Pam Bondi... condemned him as 'an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months.' That seems like a lot of firepower brought to bear on a single sandwich-throwing paralegal...."

Writes Bruce Handy, author of "Hollywood High: A Totally Epic, Way Opinionated History of Teen Movies," in "I’ll Have My Resistance on a Roll. Hold the Mayo" (NYT).

As you may have noticed, the prosecutor failed to get an indictment, disproving at long last "that grand juries aren’t in fact willing to indict ham sandwiches."

By the way, what's the origin of that old joke? Let's read Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities":

Found — August 29, August 30, August 31.

All items left untouched, found near Lake Mendota. All photographed in the early morning — 5:50, 6:15, and 6:31.

"Other signature wellness kitchen innovations include humidity controlled 'growing cabinets' for planting and maintaining live herbs and lettuces..."

"... filtered water at all taps, compacting composters and islands engineered to allow multiple cooks to chop and dice together, encouraging socializing at home... [A] high-tech gadget they recommend for coaxing kitchen gardens to grow by bathing them in magenta light and soft music is not strictly necessary. Neither are the hushed appliances they endorse for reducing noise pollution. 'If you’re in your 20s and live in a shoe box, what we recommend is, go and buy yourself a $2.99 rosemary plant... Use it in your eggs or as a garnish. When you pluck something fresh and living, it has a massive ripple effect. It resets your relationship with food.'... 'I love the fact that mental health has become a part of the conversation around kitchens'...."

From "The 1950s Kitchen Gets an Update/With today’s wellness kitchens, it’s farewell to the pantry with shelf-stabilized foods, and hail to the composter" (NYT).

I clicked on this article because I wanted to see photos of 1950s kitchens and how they might be thoughtfully renovated, but "1950s Kitchen" just refers to the homeowner's lifestyle, which used to involve more processed and shelf-stable food. So, get rid of the extra shelving and do something to help people with the problem of fresh food going bad. Then there's the idea of treating food like endless self-improvement — and not only for your body but for your mind.

Well, the truth is, I'd like a kitchen oriented to the assembling of fresh wholesome food, but I know from experience — I remodeled the kitchen, once, 30 years ago — that remodeling a kitchen is not a wellness experience. Whatever you can do with the new kitchen after it's done, what you have to do to get there is not calming or rewarding or social or meditative. 

"I think a lot about the somatics, which is how the sound feels in your body."

Said Karl Scholz, the D.J. quoted in "What’s Loud, Pink and Drawing New Yorkers Together?With his Karlala Soundsystem, Karl Scholz is using nightclub-grade audio to ensure that neighbors gather" (NYT).

Ping-ponging around the makeshift dance floor was a bearded man in flamingo pink joggers carrying a laptop. Karl Scholz, 41, was using the computer to tune the sounds coming out of each of the six hulking stacks of speakers along the street, each painted the same bold pink as his pants....

If you don't like the noise, don't live in the city.

"It is the idea that we all contain the world and the world disappears when we disappear. There’s a word for that and I can’t f***ing remember what it is."

"That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of that happening to me and every time that I can’t remember a word or something, I think, 'This is the start.'"

Said Stephen King, quoted in "Stephen King on dementia — ‘I’m afraid of that happening to me’/The bestselling author, 77, talks about why he writes every day — and says each time he can’t remember the right word he worries: 'This is the start'" (London Times).

The article isn't entirely about the fear of your own brain pre-deceasing you. It's about other fears, including the fear of AI. King says:

“I don’t really care about AI. My sons [Owen King and Joe Hill] are both writers … and they’re all hot to trot about AI and how awful it is for writers.... I just think that it’s a foregone conclusion that people are going to write better prose than some kind of automated intelligence.... I think that once there is a kind of self-replicating intelligence, once it learns how to teach itself, in other words, it isn’t going to be a question of human input any more. It’s going to be able to do that itself. And then … have you ever read The Time Machine by HG Wells? In it, a Victorian scientist travels to the year 802,701...

I like how he has the precise year, down to the 1, still in his mind and worth saying as a challenge to the fiend, Dementia, that wants to infiltrate and destroy.

"Even overpriced lobster salad can’t seem to make people out here feel better.... The Hamptons is basically in group therapy about the mayoral race."

Said Robert Zimmerman — some political fund-raiser, not the Robert Zimmerman.

Quoted in "From How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor? The Hamptons is basically in group therapy about the mayoral race." 

Holly Peterson, a Park Avenue and Southampton based novelist who, as she put it, owes her career to being able to skewer the “selfishness” of high society types, said she can barely find anyone on the East End who is over 40, works in finance and is “pro-Mamdani.”

That's reminiscent of Pauline Kael's immortal remark: "I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him." 

"Trump is dying! He hasn’t been seen in 3 days!"/"*Spent 3 days examining security footage to see who damaged his limestone*"

Leftists: “Trump is dying! He hasn’t been seen in 3 days!”

Trump: *Spent 3 days examining security footage to see who damaged his limestone* pic.twitter.com/ylpKFAefE1

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) August 30, 2025

"Those who own land would be offered a digital token by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere..."

"... or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new 'AI-powered, smart cities' to be built in Gaza. Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food. The plan estimates that every individual departure from Gaza would save the trust $23,000, compared with the cost of temporary housing and what it calls 'life support' services in the secure zones for those who stay.... [T]he trust plan 'does not rely on donations,' the prospectus says. Instead, it would be financed by public and private-sector investment in what it calls 'mega-projects,' from electric vehicle plants and data centers to beach resorts and high-rise apartments. Calculations included in the plan envision a nearly fourfold return on a $100 billion investment after 10 years, with ongoing 'self-generating' revenue streams...."

From "Gaza postwar plan envisions ‘voluntary’ relocation of entire population/The Trump administration and international partners are discussing proposals to build a 'Riviera of the Middle East' on the rubble of Gaza. One would establish U.S. control and pay Palestinians to leave" (WaPo).

What is the token worth? The plan says when the rebuilding is done, the token may be exchanged for a new 1,800-square-foot apartments worth $75,000 — right in this alien, gleaming place, rebuilt in the style of your enemy. Will the returnees gratefully toil in the new restaurants and hotels or will they see an opportunity for a glorious new era of destruction?