At the Saturday Night Café…

 … you can talk about whatever you want.

"Once I’m out of this newborn haze I’ll start dating again. Like so many women, I’m at the crossroads: can I raise children alone, confidently?"

"Absolutely. Do I yearn for someone to hold me in this fourth trimester, hug me when the hormones crash, and stay? Without a doubt. Because in the end, what I really want isn’t just a baby. It’s someone who looks at me — hormones, scars, baby sick and all — and swipes right, no questions asked."

The last paragraph of "What’s it like to date when you’re pregnant?/When Lisa Oxenham, 49, decided to have a baby on her own, she didn’t stop looking for love. Cue mornings injecting IVF hormones, and evenings swiping the apps" (London Times).

"But one man — who did not agree with the protesters — decided he would occupy the central spot. To the consternation of the others, he invited people to come talk to him one-on-one."

I wrote on March 4, 2011, in "A Free-Speech Countervoice Takes the Center of the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda."

This interlude in the Wisconsin protests came to mind as I was thinking about the death of Charlie Kirk and what his supporters might do without him. I think there is a method of engagement with people, showing courage and openness to the exchange of ideas, that is available to everyone, and it is what this one man did in 2011.

I wrote at the time: "I started to imagine Wisconsinites coming back to the building every day, talking about everything, on and on, indefinitely into the future. That man who decided to hold dialogues in the center of the rotunda is a courageous man. But it isn't that hard to be as courageous as he was. In the long run, it's easier to do that than to spend your life intimidated and repressed. That man was showing us how to be free. He was there today, but you — and you and you! — could be there tomorrow, standing your ground, inviting people to talk to you, listening and going back and forth, for the sheer demonstration of the power of human dialogue and the preservation of freedom."

"Charlie always believed that God's design for marriage and the family was absolutely amazing.... Over and over he would tell all these young people to come and find their future spouse..."

"... become wives and husbands and parents, because he wanted you all to experience what he had and still has. He wanted everyone to bring heaven into this earth through the love and joy that comes from raising a family.... My husband laid down his life for me, for our nation, for our children; he showed the ultimate and true covenantal love.... I honestly have no idea what any of this means — I know that God does, but I don't — but Charlie, baby, I know you do too. So does our Lord.... The evildoers responsible for my husband's assassination have no idea what they have done. They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God's merciful love. But... if you thought that my husband's mission was powerful before, you have no idea what you have just unleashed across this entire country and in this world. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.... The movement my husband built will not die.... No one will ever forget my husband's name, and I will make sure of it. It will become stronger, bolder, louder, and greater than ever...."

Said Erika Kirk last night.

"The Communist Party believes in building enormous projects to boost the economy and burnish political prestige."

Dan Wang, author of "Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future," quoted in "China set to open world’s tallest bridge, expanding infrastructure push The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge can fit almost two Eiffel Towers under it and will be touted as evidence of China’s engineering prowess when it opens this month" (WaPo).

Last month, Premier Li Qiang stressed the need to “harness the exemplary and galvanizing role of megaprojects”....

Poor and inland provinces... have been the target of this effort as the central government has pushed a “strategic hinterland” strategy. Despite its isolation and relative poverty, Guizhou — roughly the size of Missouri — boasts an extensive infrastructure network, with 11 airports, tall bridges and new roads.

These megaprojects are “not bridges to nowhere,” [said Li Mingshui, a civil engineering professor at Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu]....

ADDED: Why is the unusual word "hinterland" used? It's a word I sometimes use but only jocosely. I call my own location (in Wisconsin) a "remote outpost" and l sometimes say things like "here in the hinterland." It's funny to me to see it in the bureaucratic, leadenly serious context. I know it's translation from Chinese, so that might explain the oddness of this usage.

I invited ChatGPT to engage with my observation, and it said:

Sunrise — 6:29.

The vigil for Charlie Kirk at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison this evening.

The vigil for Charlie Kirk at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison this evening. pic.twitter.com/36fewdHDPQ

— Ann Althouse (@annalthouse) September 13, 2025

Video by Meade. Photo by me:

I was avoiding the sun in the tree shadow. Meade stepped into the light:

Another video:

At the vigil for Charlie Kirk at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison this evening — "How Great Thou Art": pic.twitter.com/pXVnC0tij6

— Ann Althouse (@annalthouse) September 13, 2025

"'Up arrow, right arrow, and three down arrow symbols'... appears to be a reference to a sequence of controller moves that unleashes bombs in the popular video game Helldivers 2."

"Another phrase on the cartridges, 'Notices bulges OwO what’s this?' is used for trolling, with roots in online role-play communities. Some of the other messages on the unfired cartridges appear more politically straightforward, including one that says, 'Hey fascist! Catch!'... Another featured the words 'Bella ciao,' an apparent reference to an Italian song adopted by the antifascist resistance during World War II. It is still sung by the Italian left and in other countries.... and it also appears in a recent Netflix series."

From "Here’s What Some of the Bullet Casing Engravings in the Charlie Kirk Shooting Mean/Many of the messages adopt the flippant, sarcastic chatter often found on online message boards and in-game chats" (NYT).

What Netflix series? ChatGPT tells me it's the Spanish drama-thriller series "Money Heist," which involves robbers in red jumpsuits and Salvador Dalí masks breaking into Spain’s mint and printing money. The use of the song suggests a connection between that money heist and the historical fight against fascism. The song "Bella ciao" originated "as an anthem of Italian partisans fighting Mussolini and the Nazis."

One must infer that the murderer envisioned himself as an antifascist hero. Presumably, he was able to see what happened to Luigi Mangione.

"I think what the enemy intended for evil, the Lord will use for good. We will see what the Lord does through it."

Said Jeff Schwarzentraub of the BRAVE Church in Denver, quoted in "Kirk’s Christian Supporters Mourn Him as a Martyr/'Charlie died for what he believed in,' said Jackson Lahmeyer, a pastor in Oklahoma" (NYT).

I'm interested in the concept of Charlie Kirk as a "martyr."  I wrote post yesterday inviting people to contemplate Kirk as a "saint." If you're inclined to think that Kirk was too political to fit this religious conception, here he is in his own defense:

"If all this comes to pass, it will cement [Bari] Weiss as a key figure in shaping the national news environment, just five years after her much publicized resignation from the New York Times..."

"... over what she characterized as a censorious and hostile workplace. This came in the wake of the resignation of the editorial page editor, James Bennet, after a staff uproar over the publication of Senator Tom Cotton’s opinion piece calling for military intervention against Black Lives Matter protesters.... If Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press goes through, Weiss will probably be in a position to recruit a network of snitches and rightwing thought police, both from within existing CBS staff and from her own publication, ensconced throughout one of the four largest US media conglomerates. CBS staffers are reportedly 'apoplectic' at the news of her impending role.... When Trump first ran for office, Weiss positioned herself as a 'Never Trumper'.... [Later] she saw the left’s 'overzealous, out-of-touch, hysterical reaction to him' as 'extraordinarily authoritarian and totalitarian in its impulses'.... ... Trump could never operate in the kinds of spaces where Weiss has been able to flourish.... [S]he is uniquely well-suited to champion the prerogatives of those in academia, media, publishing and similar sectors who feel threatened by progressive social movements."

From "Disgruntled NYT journalist to ‘anti-woke’ power grab: how far can Bari Weiss go?/After leaving the New York Times, she turned her Substack into an unshakable pro-Israel voice. Now as Paramount eyes acquisition of her company, Weiss is poised to become Trump’s ally among media elites" (Guardian).

"The apparent capture of a person of interest in the Charlie Kirk shooting, announced just now by President Trump...."

"A man in his 20s was taken into custody at about 11 p.m. local time on Thursday night by Utah state and local police.... Announcements of major arrests often come at orchestrated news conferences, but in this case, President Trump announced the arrest on Fox and Friends, and cautioned that his information was preliminary...."

Updates at the NYT just now.

ADDED: 

🚨BREAKING: President Trump says Charlie Kirk’s killer was captured with help from the assassin’s father and a minister.

“Somebody that was very close to him turned him in. And that happens when you had some of those good shots.”

“It was a minister and the minister went to a… pic.twitter.com/3BXvM7887d

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 12, 2025

Trump says that the man's father "got involved... and said we’ve got to go in. I understand it’s subject to change, but the facts are the facts. We have the person we think we’re looking for. They drove into the police headquarters, and he’s there now."

ALSO: People on X are focusing on this guy, who is awful whether he's the murderer or not:

This is the Prime suspect for Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Skye Valadez debated Charlie not long ago, had a song called "Charlie Kirk Dead at 31" on his Soundcloud, uses She/her pronouns on Facebook. Lives in the area. pic.twitter.com/4EicRhfjoe

— Lozzy B 🇦🇺𝕏 (@TruthFairy131) September 12, 2025

MORE: I don't think the man in that video looks like the mugshot of the arrested man, Tyler Robinson.

"All I wanted was to grow up in peace, deal with my bodily changes and these pesky new zits without it being recorded. But my mother was omnipresent, her phone an extension of her arm … every little moment was mined for content."

Writes Shari Franke, "The House of My Mother," quoted in "Is It Abusive to Make Art About Your Children? It’s not quite #MeToo, but a spate of new memoirs is forcing a reckoning on what consent means when your parent is the artist" (NYT).

Shari Franke is the daughter of "mommy vlogger" Ruby Franke, who was ultimately convicted of child abuse. The article also discusses Sally Mann, the photographer we talked about a couple days ago, here.

Mann has her own memoir, in which she concedes, “I wanted attention for the work and the easiest way to get it was obviously to put forward the most attention-grabbing imagery.... To be an artist means you must declare a loyalty to your art form and your vision that runs deeper than almost any other, even sometimes deeper than blood kinship.... When I stepped behind the camera, and they stepped in front of it, I was a photographer, and they were actors and we were making a photograph."

There's this quote from Molly Jong-Fast: "In [my mother's] view, she did spend time with me — in her head, in her writing, in the world she inhabited. I was there. I may have felt that she was slightly allergic to me, but to her, she was spending time with the most important version of me."

By the way, did you know "Christopher Robin Milne resented his father’s use of his likeness in the Winnie the Pooh stories, and Peter Llewelyn Davies, the inspiration for 'Peter Pan,' seemed to live in a permanent state of rage at being associated with the character."

The article is by Parul Sehgal, who writes: "If the child’s perspective goes unacknowledged, and their compliance confused for collaboration, it might be because our focus has so often been elsewhere — on the needs and rights of the artist-parent, on the struggle to have domestic life and, specifically, motherhood, accepted as a subject worthy of study."

That feminist issue has overshadowed the childist perspective. Is "childist" even a word? Actually, yes, but this is the first time I'm thinking of it, and I had to check to see that I wasn't coining it.

Sunrise — 6:04, 6:36. 6:39, 7:04.

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"I saw a lot of rumors online today... that I canceled some sort of college tour. That's bullshit. I saw those rumors. They're false."

"I will be coming to college campuses, many of them this year. So will we all. I am sure, because we're Americans, and we're not going to be deterred. Charlie's voice is not silent. We're going to pick up that bloodstained microphone where Charlie left it. And to those who would intimidate, who would seek to stop us, who would seek to end free discussion, who believe that they have ownership over public spaces and can violently threaten and kill people who speak freely: We are not going to stop. And I have two words: Fuck you. We will not stop telling the truth. We will never stop telling the truth. We will never stop debating and discussing. We'll never stop standing up for what America is and for what she should be. And we will never let Charlie Kirk's voice die."

Said Ben Shapiro on today's episode of his podcast, "Unthinkable, Charlie Kirk, 31, Assassinated."

Today is 9/11, and Ben's statement makes me think of the idea that if we don't continue to live as freely and fully as we had before then we will be letting the terrorists win. 

Autumn edges in.

This morning at 7:

"I think what you look like is a standard poodle and I love standard poodles."

A model for a perfect husband, revealed in "My cool cancer story/A year after losing my hair and self image to cancer, I put on my $5,000 prescription wig and look at myself and say, 'THERE she is.'" (WaPo video, free access).

Charlie Kirk's pitch to students was "be a conservative because that will allow you to speak your mind, to truly be free, and to buck this oppressive system of liberalism all around you...."

"And it seems they were saying that the left at one point on college campuses was the counterculture, but around this time, it's pretty clear that it's just the culture in many of these campuses. And it feels like what's innovative about Kirk's pitches is that at this moment, conservatism can become the counterculture."

Says Michael Barbaro, on today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "The Assassination of Charlie Kirk."

He's interviewing fellow NYT reporter Robert Draper, who'd written a profile of Kirk that was published last February, "How Charlie Kirk Became the Youth Whisperer of the American Right/Collecting donors, voters, TikTok viewers and high-powered friends on his way into Trump’s inner circle."

In today's podcast, Draper says:

"Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him."

"He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.... ... I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness.... It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended through bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine, and for the sake of our larger shared project...."

Writes Ezra Klein, in "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way" (NYT).

That resonates with something Meade just texted me:

"When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against… pic.twitter.com/Kq1Cbq744S

— DiploAct (@diploact) September 10, 2025

"Charlie is already in paradise with the angels"/"We take comfort in the knowledge that he is now at peace with God in heaven."

Said RFK Jr. and Donald Trump. 

Questions I asked ChatGPT:

1. Were they attesting to Charlie Kirk's sainthood?

2. If you had to argue that Charlie Kirk should be canonized what would you say?

3. Outside of the Catholic Church how is sainthood talked about?

Answers here.

ADDED: Those questions were posed to ChatGPT, not Grok, as I'd written before. Here, I've given Grok a chance.

AND: This post was written as a serious invitation to contemplate Kirk as a saint. He presented his efforts as for his faith. Asked how he would want to be remembered, if he were to die, he said: "I want to be remembered for courage for my faith. That would be the most important thing."

"It's long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year..."

"... in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.... Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died — the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.... Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger and grander than ever before, and it's not even close...."

Said Trump in an address from the Oval Office last night.

My attention was called to that by this Maggie Haberman piece in the NYT: "At the White House, Trump’s Grief and Shock Turn to Rage Over Charlie Kirk/President Trump asked for updates and met with advisers in the Oval Office before recording a four-minute video in which he blamed rhetoric from the 'radical left' for the killing."

The headline prompts us to question Trump's basis for purporting to know what motivated the killer. Maybe we ought to wait until we learn more, and maybe the hateful rhetoric is coming from both sides, and maybe there are leftwing targets of violence. I'm imagining those on the left scurrying to prevent Trump and his allies from controlling the narrative.

I wrote that last paragraph based on the headline and drawing on my own expectations. Then I read the article and did not find what I'd thought I'd find. It is more of a straightforward description of the scene at the White House yesterday. We're told "the corridors... were quiet, as staff there absorbed news," and "Televisions affixed to walls in different rooms blared minute-to-minute coverage.... Some staff members appeared to have been crying."

The last sentence of the article makes me jerk my head to check the calendar icon in the sidebar of my computer: "The president was still on track for a visit to New York on the anniversary of the last significant event to unite nearly all Americans across parties: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

It's a very somber day, not a day to strain to find a way to advantage your side. And yet, there is Trump in that video, forthrightly blaming the radical left. He didn't take a day or 2 off for reflection and what either is or looks like prayer. And that's a temptation to all on the left and all those pumping for Democrats to assert that the right is also responsible for the violence. Yield to that temptation and you might be the next Matthew Dowd.

See "Matthew Dowd Fired From MSNBC for Charlie Kirk Comments" (Variety). What Dowd said, probably feeling this was measured, accurate, and smart: "[Charlie Kirk] is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in."

Sunrise — 6:04, 6:31, 6:35, 6:38, 6:43.

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"The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead."

"No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!"

Writes Trump, on Truth Social.

ADDED:

"We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!"

Writes President Trump, at Truth Social.

I asked Grok, "Did Charlie Kirk die?" For what it's worth, Grok answered: "No, Charlie Kirk did not die. He was shot and injured during an event at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, and was taken to a hospital for treatment. While rumors of his death spread rapidly on social media, including X, no credible news outlets have reported his death, and the incident remains under investigation as a developing story."

I'm seeing apparent eyewitnesses on TV saying they saw him shot in the chest/neck with "gushing" blood. I note that it is taking a very long time to hear an update on Kirk's condition, and I don't think that is a positive sign. Looking at the video embedded above, I think it appears that he was shot in the chest.

ADDED: I’ve removed the video of the shooting and of the man who was detained and then cleared. 

"In January, the Texas police entered a group exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth that featured [Sally] Mann, and they seized several photos from the 'Immediate Family' series..."

"... her landmark monograph of their three preadolescent children, Emmett, Jessie and Virginia — in which the children appear nude. (None is more graphic than your average Christ child of the Italian Renaissance.) The police were prepared to bring charges of child pornography against the museum, even sending officers on a (broadly discredited) investigation of art museums in New York, according to the Fort Worth Report. A grand jury declined to bring it to trial, and Mann’s photos were later returned to Gagosian, her gallery. But to the artist and many journalists, the seizure seemed to bring a belated, QAnon-era fruition to the allegations of child exploitation that Mann has weathered since unveiling the photos in the 1990s..."

From "Sally Mann, in Her Golden Hour, Faces Fresh Culture Wars/One of America’s finest memoirists, in photos and in prose, is at the peak of her powers in 'Art Work'— and wondering if her pictures will survive" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see some of her photos, not the seized photos, and read the whole story).

"In her attic, Mann stared at a stack of the 150 unexhibited 'Black Men' prints, wrapped in opaque plastic. Downstairs, we clicked through scans of them: forearms, backs, hands folded, prayerlike. A photograph is two things, Roland Barthes said: what it says to the world and what it says to you. Mann has found herself hounded by that first way of seeing.

"One of the reasons women are generally more reluctant to use new technologies is that they’ve been socially conditioned to be more risk-averse...."

"[N]ew technology invariably involves risks: What happens if it doesn’t work and ruins a project? What happens if I use it and am then accused of cheating or being dishonest? Women may not consciously be thinking about these scenarios, but centuries of double standards and glass ceilings mean that we’ve grown accustomed to playing it safe. The only real way forward is to ensure that using AI does not feel like taking a risk. It has to feel like an unremarkable way of working: not unnerving, not intimidating, not sketchy, just necessary and obvious...."

Writes Josie Cox, in "The most radical act of feminism? Using AI/Women are far less likely to use AI tools like ChatGPT than men. But the tech is here to stay — and the disparity risks widening workplace inequalities" (London Times).

If women are risk averse, then the world should be made less risky? Or should women be incited somehow to take more risks? It's just the way we've been "socially conditioned," we're told. It's all those "centuries of double standards and glass ceilings." Can't we just be socially conditioned out of our unfortunate risk aversion? No, we're told the risks need to be removed. I'm skeptical. I think the author really suspects that women are risk averse by nature. Why not come out and say that? Risk aversion?!

ADDED: So I boldly approached AI and asked "If you had to argue that women are risk averse by nature, what would you say?"

"We have to be vicious just like they are. It's the only thing they understand."

Said President Trump, about the murder of Iryna Zarutska on the train in Charlotte. Trump presents the problem of violence as straightforward, easy to solve quickly if we simply have the will to go hardcore into law and order, with none of the liberal complexity.

Meanwhile, over at The Washington Post, there's "Trump blames Democrats for Charlotte stabbing. Records complicate the story. The case has sharpened partisan divisions about an intractable root of crime: how to treat the seriously mentally ill who pose risks of violence."

Is it really so complicated and intractable? WaPo urges readers to see "nuances" — basically the failure to deal with mental illness.

"'It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.' We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized."

"Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision."

Kamala Harris writes, quoted in "Harris admits Biden 'got tired,' denies 'conspiracy' to hide mental decline/'107 Days' reveals Harris felt unsupported by Biden staff on foreign policy and immigration issues" (Fox News).

How could it be recklessness? Everyone — "we all" — adopted a stock phrase to protect their own political interests and to avoid responsibility for depriving the country of a legitimate primary process and to foist her on us.

I guess it means something that she's calling herself and her confederates reckless. It is bad to be reckless, so she's admitting fault. It's just not believable that the fault was in carelessly disregarding the risks. It was coldly deliberate, and it would have been brilliant, I'm sure they all thought, if it had worked, and she'd won.

"Trump’s federal takeover of Washington ends today, after a 30-day period.... For Trump, the job is done."

"The capital city is now safe, so he says, his experiment a runaway success. He proved it by driving a single block in his motorcade last night for a dinner at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, the ultra-traditional dining room on 15th and H. 'I wouldn’t have done this three months ago, four months ago,' Trump told the press pack outside. 'This was one of the most unsafe cities in the country. Now it’s as safe as there is.'... A group of women inside the restaurant filmed themselves shouting at the president — 'Free D.C., Free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time' — and were swiftly ejected by the Secret Service. And the Google rating for poor old Joe’s is plummeting fast, thanks to a sudden and mysterious blitz of one-star reviews.... Trump and the GOP plan to keep hammering away hard on law and order, keeping the horrific murder of refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte front and center of their campaign...."

From the Politico "Playbook": "Donald dines out."

The dinner disrupters:

CODEPINK activists disrupted Trump, Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, and other cabinet members’ dinner.

They feast while Gaza starves.
Trump is the Hitler of our time.
Free DC. Free Palestine!
Stop terrorizing communities all over the world!! pic.twitter.com/dPLeWIwHLH

— CODEPINK (@codepink) September 10, 2025

Watch how Trump stands and smiles, taking the abuse for awhile, then waves his finger in a subtle get-'em-outta-here message. Seconds later, he flashes angry and orders "Come on, let's go." I imagine people around him learn to jump at the subtle gesture so they won't have to endure the swiftly approaching rage. All 3 stages are, I believe, political theater: 1. the patient smile, 2. the subtle finger wave, 3. The sharp, angry order. I don't think he was happy, then disapproving, then rageful. It's a routine and he's in control. That's where I place my bet.

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but weak cases can do grave damage in the meantime."

"Look no further than the collapse on Tuesday of Michigan’s 'fake electors' prosecution against supporters of President Donald Trump for their actions after the 2020 election...."

So says The Editorial Board of The Washington Post, in "The collapse of Democratic lawfare in Michigan/Dismissal of 'fake electors' charges bodes ill for cases in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Georgia."

The wheels of justice turn slowly? I've always heard Justice delayed is justice denied. Those "wheels" are not justice wheels if they turn that slowly. There's every reason to suspect that the slow turning of the wheel is intentional punishment. Torture wheels.

And what about the wheels of editorial opinion? Why has it taken The Washington Post so long to condemn the "fake electors" case? The last paragraph of the editorial gives away the game:

Democrats tried to use prosecutions as an adjunct to their political strategy in the run-up to the 2024 election. That has backfired spectacularly. There are growing signs that Republicans might be attempting the same destructive strategy by selectively pursuing criminal investigations against their opponents. They would deserve the same result.

And what if it hadn't backfired? What if it had worked spectacularly and the Democrats had won the 2024 election? Would The Washington Post be cheering the Democrats' staunch adherence to the "rule of law," it's tenacious pursuit of the principle that no one is above the law? 

Sunrise — 6:05, 6:34, 6:37.

Today begins the 7th year of going out to see the sunrise. Scroll down 2 posts to see the top 20 photos from year 6. 

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"A Michigan judge dismissed criminal charges Tuesday against a group of people who were accused of attempting to falsely certifying President Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election..."

"... in the battleground state, a major blow to prosecutors as similar cases in four other states have been muddied with setbacks. District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons... said she saw no intent to commit fraud in the defendants’ actions. Whether they were 'right, wrong or indifferent,' they 'seriously believed' there were problems with the election, the judge said. 'I believe they were executing their constitutional right to seek redress,' Simmons said."

AP reports.

Look back on the 20 best of the year on this, the 6th anniversary of the sunrise project.

In chronological order, with a few notes, including my choice of the best single image from the year.

September 13:

September 14:

September 22:

October 23:

"She rekindled the relationship at the funeral" — for his wife of 56 years — "They started spending time together.”

From "Iran-Contra figures Oliver North and Fawn Hall secretly marry 40 years after scandal: report" (NY Post).

Hall had been married Danny Sugarman, the manager of The Doors, from 1993 until his death in 2005.

"But what if there was a missing layer, a lost generation of artists whose work ran hot-to-feverish in temperature and was driven by a Whitmanesque love of the human body and its longings?"

"This is the question raised with appropriate hippie optimism in 'Sixties Surreal,' an ambitiously revisionist exhibition opening on Sept. 24 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It brings together about 150 works by 111 painters, sculptors, photographers, collagists, cartoonists, junk assemblage-ists, and at least one Kabballah-ist, most of whom were pushed to the sidelines of the ’60s art scene for various unkind reasons...."

From "Roll Over, Warhol: Taking the ’60s Beyond Pop Art/A thrillingly revisionist history of the era at the Whitney Museum uncovers a current of art that sprang from eros and the uncensored minds of R. Crumb, Martha Edelheit and others" (NYT).

"Of the 111 artists in the show, 47 are women... On a recent afternoon, I visited the studio of Martha Edelheit, a little-known, twice-widowed Manhattanite, now 94, who is about to make her Whitney debut.... She was part of a generation of proto-feminists who painted explicit nudes. In 1965, she recalled, she had a show at the Byron Gallery in Manhattan. The New York Times critic John Canaday came in to look, only to politely explain to the gallery owner that he couldn’t review 'that obscene woman.' Stretching 16 feet wide, across three panels, ['Flesh Wall With Table' (1965)']... embeds a group of female nudes in the space surrounding her drawing table. Languid bodies sprawl from edge to edge of the canvas, snoozing comfortably, their flesh graced with a rainbow of color that progresses from delicate ivories and pinks to dense ceruleans and purples."

Suggestive!

"The truth is that Iryna had no real choice. If she avoided the seat in front of the Black man, she might look like a racist."

"She had no reason to fear him, after all, because she was sympathetic to the plight of racism in America and even had the words 'Black Lives Matter' and 'I can’t breathe' scrawled on a chalkboard in her room."

Writes Sasha Stone, in "The Girl on the Train/She escaped war in Ukraine only to find herself in the middle of a different kind of war in the United States."

"One woman wrote: 'With you, dear Jeffrey, I laugh like a little girl and feel like a woman.'"

"The next page in the book simply shows a hand-drawn heart, a brief message and a photo of a woman’s buttocks in a thong bikini. Another assistant described how Mr. Epstein transformed her life, from a 22-year-old woman who had been divorced and had worked in a hotel restaurant to a person who traveled the world meeting powerful people. Among them, she listed Mr. Trump, Mr. Clinton and 'brilliant scientists, lawyers and business men.'"

From "In Epstein’s 'Birthday Book,' a Celebration of His Lecherous Exploits/The book containing 50th birthday tributes to Jeffrey Epstein was released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee" (NYT).

I've been inside the museums and I've scrawled my way through many life drawing classes, and it's never occurred to me to refer to nudes as "suggestive."

But this morning I'm reading The New York Times....

A key congressional committee on Monday released a note and sexually suggestive drawing containing what appeared to be Donald J. Trump’s signature that was included in a book for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 — a drawing that Mr. Trump has insisted he did not create.

And The Washington Post...

... Democrats on the committee released portions of the book — including a suggestive picture and note allegedly drawn by President Donald Trump when he and Epstein were friends.

A nude is suggestive? A line drawing of a nude???

Cover your eyes, children, we're in the Henri Matisse gallery!

A quote from Henri Matisse: "I have always considered drawing not as an exercise of particular dexterity… but as a means deliberately simplified so as to give simplicity and spontaneity to the expression, which should speak without clumsiness, directly to the mind of the spectator."

When Henri — or Donald — speaks without clumsiness, directly to the mind of the spectator, what does he suggest?

When a nude purportedly drawn by Donald Trump is called "suggestive" in the NYT or the Washington Post, we're supposed to think that the message is... what? Rape this? 

"There Must Be More to Life Than..."

Sunrise — 5:59, 6:21.

Feel free to write about whatever.

A heads-up for tomorrow's sunrise post: It will be the 6th anniversary of this project and I'll be following the annual tradition of looking back over the sunrise photos of the past year and picking out my favorites. You might want to click the "sunrise" tag and scroll back and suggest away. Working just off memory, I think August 24 — the one I called a "TOP 1% sunrise" at the time — might have been the best sunrise of the year. But there are 6 photos of it, so... lots of narrowing down to do before tomorrow night.

"Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.. opined that race can be considered along with other factors in forming reasonable suspicion to stop someone for an immigration check..."

"... such as where people are gathering and what jobs they are working. 'To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a "relevant factor" when considered along with other salient factors,’ Kavanaugh wrote. The court’s three liberal justices sharply dissented. 'We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,' Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissent. 'Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.'"

From "Supreme Court lifts limits on immigration raids in the Los Angeles area/The raids sparked major protests in Southern California. President Donald Trump deployed troops from the California National Guard and Marines in response" (WaPo).

"This was a demise foretold. Fatalistic in the face of a parliamentary impasse, Mr. Bayrou had, even before the debate began, invited his entourage to a 'convivial moment'..."

"... or farewell soirée, this evening. With four prime ministers in the past 20 months, and a fifth likely to be appointed now, the fall of French governments, once unusual, has become close to mundane.... 'Domination by military force, or domination by our creditors as a result of debts that drown us, produces the same result: The loss of our liberty,' Mr. Bayrou said, to opposition cries of 'It’s not the same thing!' His appeal fell on deaf ears. The far right of Marine Le Pen and a group of left and far-left parties, holding a clear majority between them, rejected the freezing of welfare payments, cutting two national holidays and other austerity measures proposed by Mr. Bayrou. Ms. Le Pen, true to her National Rally party’s doctrine, suggested cutting spending on immigrants instead...."

From "French Government Collapses, Again, Deepening Paralysis/Prime Minister François Bayrou failed a confidence vote aimed at breaking an impasse over the budget, adding more pressure on President Emmanuel Macron" (NYT).

"The department did not specify where the hikers obtained the mushrooms, which contain psilocybin, a hallucinogenic compound that can cause people to see, hear or feel things that do not exist."

From "Hikers on Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Rescued From New York Wilderness/The hikers, who were in the Catskill Mountains, told officials that they had consumed the hallucinogen and one was experiencing a 'debilitating high.' It was the second such episode in recent months" (NYT).

The men were lost on the Giant Ledge Trail, a popular hiking destination in the Catskills, about 80 miles southwest of Albany. The trail ranges from 1,100 to 2,600 feet in elevation with “several sheer cliffs and drops”... Still, the three-mile loop is well-marked and wildly popular, making it difficult to get lost.... The hikers left the trail after deciding they wanted to walk in a straight line toward their car, through an area with boulders and steep terrain....

I'm imagining them embracing the revelation that you could just walk straight to the car, while all these other people deludedly believe they are required to adhere to the official path. Proceed directly to the car and drive away into your enlightened new life. 

"I’m the nice lady who wrote 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and I’m out in the park with fentanyl and morphine and sleeping pills trying to craft a murder."

From "Elizabeth Gilbert Gets Dark/A new memoir finds the self-help icon locked in a destructive romantic relationship with her best friend, who relapsed while fighting terminal cancer" (NYT)(free access link).

That's a free access link, in case you were an "Eat, Pray, Love" fan and had an impression of Elizabeth Gilbert as a nice lady and need to see if it's crushed. Me, I never picked up that book, was never vulnerable to the possibility that the author was a "nice lady" and wouldn't have cared. I just assumed she was a lady who was into herself for reasons that had nothing to do with me. Is praying something to be wedged in between gorging and fucking? I don't know, but I didn't need to know. I have no Elizabeth Gilbert-related illusions to be dispelled and I'm not temptable into the question whether she's got a dark side. I'm just going to guess that the "murder" she was "crafting" was assisting in the suicide of a cancer patient.

Vegetarian is not enough.

Photo by Meade, which he describes as "City bus 3 blocks from Ag school dairy building."

It's an impressive and persuasive slogan, but one might also say: Because you consume vegetables, rodents, birds, snakes, and amphibians die.

But the calf is a lovable being, one could respond, speciesistly. Look at its sweet face!

"The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Donald Trump to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission despite a federal law..."

"... that is intended to restrict the White House’s power to control the agency.... Trump fired both Democratic commissioners on the five-person FTC in March, [Rebecca Kelly] Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. Both challenged the move, although Bedoya later dropped out of the case. Slaughter is currently listed as a serving commissioner on the agency’s website, as the case has made its way through the courts. The firings are a direct challenge to a 1935 Supreme Court precedent called Humphrey's Executor v. United States that upheld limits on the president’s ability to fire FTC commissioners without cause, a restriction Congress imposed to protect the agency from political pressure. Under the 1914 law that set up the agency, members can only be removed for 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.'"

From "Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner/Trump's actions are in direct tension with a 1935 ruling that upheld restrictions on the president's ability to remove FTC commissioners without cause" (NBC News).

"Slaughter is currently listed as a serving commissioner on the agency’s website" — not anymore. 

ADDED: The fact that NBC News referred to the fired commissioners as "Democratic commissioners" gives away the game. According to Humphrey's Executor, the idea was that "The commission is to be nonpartisan; and it must, from the very nature of its duties, act with entire impartiality." And "It is charged with the enforcement of no policy except the policy of the law." 

Who even remembers to pretend that was supposed to be the idea these days?!

"I don’t think there have been successes. We’ve seen a 30- or 40-year decline in the agency because... it’s been infiltrated by the pharmaceutical companies."

"And they’ve made a series of bad decisions.... What we want to do now is put an end to it, to end those entanglements — those corrupting entanglements with the pharmaceutical industry — and make this again a gold standard science agency that is protecting the American public."

Said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., quoted in "RFK Jr. says he sees no successes in the agency he leads" (CNN).

About those people who say crime is down in Washington D.C.? "I would say they fool because they don't live where I live."

Says Sandra Seagers, 74, who lives in Congress Heights part of the city, quoted in today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "When the National Guard Comes to Town" (audio and transcript at Podscribe).

We're told: "Her own brother was shot and killed in the seventies. But she says back then crime was targeted toward people who were involved in it. And for the most part, bystanders were left alone. And as time went on, things changed. It was more crime, the stores shut down. But now, especially since the pandemic, she says, it feels like the violence is more random....  and for Sandra, that means more innocent people and even businesses are caught up in it.... She says, after the murder of George Floyd, the police were too lean on crime. She was also frustrated with the DC law that prevented kids from being charged with adult crimes. She was so fed up that she actually wrote a letter to the mayor and city council asking for the National Guard to be sent in.... But the response was, no. The city council couldn't stop it. The police couldn't stop it. The mayor couldn't stop it. So Sandra, too afraid to go outside, hasn't been to a grocery store in two years.... She was listening to the local radio station one late afternoon when she heard the President describe the city as one beset by crime and lawlessness.... It resonated with her."

Seager says: "I did not vote for Donald Trump. I did not. And I don't agree with a lot of things he's doing. But when he decided to bring in the National Guard and the, and the federal agencies, I was happy. First day it was announced, that same night, that I didn't hear gunshots, no shootings, and no stabbing. I saw one car come by and one person walking and that was it. People calm down...."

"Bessent, who comes across publicly as soft-spoken, has won Trump’s trust as a 'soothing' presence for jittery markets amid the president’s unpredictable plays..."

"...on tariffs and other economic issues. A cautious operator who’s been called a 'moderating influence' on the administration, the billionaire former hedge fund manager has overcome his past association with Democratic megadonor George Soros and is now considered one of Trump’s closest allies. Meanwhile, Pulte — a brash 37-year-old with 3 million X followers — has taken a more pugnacious tack in his lower-profile job...."

From "'I’m Gonna Punch You in Your F---ing Face': Scott Bessent Threatens an Administration Rival/The Treasury secretary's quiet tensions with housing finance chief Bill Pulte exploded at a private dinner last week" (Politico).

What's a soft-spoken guy to do when confronted with someone who's brash and pugnacious and going behind your back? 

Quotes attributed to Bessent in that article: "Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you," "I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face," "It’s either me or him. You tell me who’s getting the fuck out of here. Or we could go outside," "I’m going to fucking beat your ass."

ADDED: This makes me think Jordan Peterson's oft-stated idea about man-on-man conflict. Knowing that it could turn into a physical fight enhances the communication. Sample Peterson quote:

"There's so much criticism of media that hasn't picked up the story, yet it hasn't changed, perhaps because they're sticking to the original judgment that it's a local murder story..."

"... and not every murder gets to be national news. So the question is why some people (the right?) see elements that make it deserve national attention and others (the left?) think that it doesn't. A black man kills a white woman — that alone can't be enough. The woman is beautiful. The woman came from Ukraine. The violence was sudden and random (it could happen to you!)."

I write, prompting ChatGPT to respond to the NY Post column with the headline, "Horrid video of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska’s slaughter on Charlotte train is met with deafening silence from Dem leaders, media."

ChatGPT's answer can be read here, where you will also see that prompt was my second prompt.

My first prompt was: "I'm seeing this news story and wondering if it's possible that the story is a hoax, with AI generated video. The video is so 'on the nose' to stir up basic fears. Is it being ignored because it's not true?"

The answer was enough to overcome my suspicion: "Surveillance footage was released by Charlotte police showing the stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, aboard the Lynx Blue Line light rail in Charlotte on August 22, 2025. She was fatally stabbed by Decarlos Brown Jr., a 34-year-old homeless man with a criminal history. Brown was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree murder."

ADDED: In case that link to ChatGPT isn't working, here's the text of how it answered the second prompt:

Sunrise — 6:30, 6:32.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

"More fundamental... is an underlying national malaise that can seem inexplicable to outsiders but which has undoubtedly gathered pace..."

"Call it the 'French Paradox.' For the more than 100 million people or so who visit France each year — more than any other place on the planet — the country has long been synonymous with glorious weather and scenery, good food and wine, and the best high-speed rail network in Europe.... Many of the French themselves appear to see their country differently, however, with a traditional national grumpiness giving way to what one recent poll described as 'a collective depression.'... It could be... a 'feeling of lost identity.' Such national gloom explains the rapid spread of the discontent expressed by those behind the protests planned for Wednesday, largely on TikTok, Facebook and other social media platforms, many of them from Paris and other big cities in what has been dubbed la France périphérique...."

From "Let’s block everything: protesters plan to ‘pull the brake’ on France/National malaise under President Macron is moving towards a general strike — campaigners who want to abolish political parties have planned a day of disruption" (London Times).

So, apparently, a country is having a mental breakdown.

"La France périphérique" means "Peripheral France." I can see that there was a 2014 book titled — and translated — "Peripheral France: How the Working Classes Have Been Sacrificed" — which Grok says "analyzes the marginalization of France's working classes—often described as 'French of native stock' or 'petits Blancs' (little whites)—who have been displaced from urban centers due to globalization and economic shifts." 

Heron experiences puzzlement at humanyelling.

Video by Meade, near the UW Marching Band practice field.

CORRECTION: The location was not by the practice field but near Lake Wingra, and the yelling was not from the band leader but kids, playing soccer. Also, for those who may care about precision in the observation of birds, there was, just out of the frame, a bunch of Canada geese. Meade seems to think the heron was annoyed by the geese and believes he saw the heron imitate the geese to insult and mock them! Meade performed the move the heron made with his neck, as if the heron meant to let the geese know how stupid they look.

"We ask all broadcasters to refrain from showcasing any disruptions or reactions in response to the President’s attendance in any capacity."

Said the memo from the United States Tennis Association, quoted in "USTA asks broadcasters to censor reaction to Donald Trump’s attendance at U.S. Open" (NYT).

"We regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions," said a USTA spokesman.

If the President is showcasing himself, shouldn't the anti-President forces get their say? Well... the President's attendance at the event is to watch tennis, which fits with the USTA enterprise of displaying tennis to all of us, traditionally done with celebrities in the live audience. The protesters' opposition to the President has nothing to do with tennis. They want to speak/"speak" on a different topic. The President is only "speaking" (silently) about his (possibly bogus) interest in tennis, so it's not really censorship... is it?

If you feel that Trump's occupation of the presidency is a highly alarming catastrophe, these fine distinctions are outrageous and intolerable. I'm sure I'm not the first person to bring up Hitler's showcasing of himself at the 1936 Olympics:

"But as real celebrities and influencers try to be perceived as more 'authentic,' many A.I. influencers like Miquela and Mia Zelu are leaning into their unrealness..."

"... proudly claiming their robot monikers in their bios and having no shame about posting in Hong Kong at 3 p.m. and in New York an hour later. In fact, the teams behind them feel the lack of a corporeal form may be their best selling point. 'From a brand perspective, we are able to create a very dynamic story line,' Ms. Kahn said. 'So Miquela can be, for example, in London one day supporting an art gallery opening, and in L.A. the same day to support a new coffee shop that she really likes, right? I think brands love that she can be anywhere... I think the next generation isn’t really thinking as much about is this person real or not?... It’s more about: 'What does this account stand for?'"

I'm reading "They’re Famous. They’re Everywhere. And They’re Fake. Influencers like Lil’ Miquela and Mia Zelu have millions of followers and generate serious income, despite being created with artificial intelligence" (NYT).

1. Who's "Ms. Kahn"? Who cares?

2. I like how they put "authentic" in quotes.

3. What's the difference between A.I. "influencers" like Miquela and old-time ad mascots like Tony the Tiger and the Trix rabbit?

4. You know who else can be in Hong Kong and then in New York an hour later? Santa Claus. Kids have accepted his dictates as long as I can remember. At least Miquela isn't demanding that we be "good" and threatening us with a list. Or is it only a matter of time?

5. Here is what reality must compete with:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Miquela (@lilmiquela)

6. Maybe she and her ilk are saving us all from the trouble of striving to excel at fakeness. We're free at last. Now, what?

7. What if the people you met in real life were like Miquela, putting their plastic cup on their head and affecting an expression of inane ecstasy? And maybe they already are... and have been for a long time. I went running to find this passage from "My Dinner With André," a movie that came out more than 40 years ago:

... I turned the television on, and there was this guy who had just won the something something, you know, some sports event, some kind of a great big check and some kind of huge silver bottle, and he, you know, you know, he couldn’t stuff the check in the bottle, and he put the bottle in front of his nose and pretended it was his face, you know, he wasn’t really listening to the guy who was interviewing him, but he was smiling, huh, malevolently at his friends, and I looked at that guy and I thought “What a horrible, empty, manipulative rat.” Then I thought, “That guy is me.”

8. Writing #7 — "What if the people you met" — made me think of an old song that I gradually realized was "Who Are the Brain Police?"

"My last wish will be just one thing/Be smilin' when I die/I wanna be one toke over the line, sweet Jesus...."

I blogged when Brewer died — last December — so I will blog the death of Shipley: 

"Tom Shipley, Whose Ode to Weed Reached the Top 10, Dies at 84/With their 'One Toke Over the Line,' he and Michael Brewer saw a musical in-joke turn into a timeless cultural phenomenon" (NYT).

ADDED: From last December's post: "The singer was 'sitting downtown in a railway station" and "just waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary.' Even if the song originated from an exclamation about smoking marijuana, it seems that the substance of the song is religious. The metaphor of the train is seen in other songs, such as 'People Get Ready (There's a train a-coming....') and 'This Train (Is Bound for Glory).'"

"In a clinical setting there are many things you’re not allowed to say unless you want to end up in a hospital. So I couldn’t be honest with my psychiatrist..."

"... my therapist or anyone who was supposedly there to help, and I kept it all bottled inside. Then ChatGPT came along. I could ask it anything. There was no threat to my freedom. I wasn’t judged. I got information, ideas of things to try to help with symptoms and to talk to my psychiatrist about, encouragement, and when things were bad, advice to reach out to my medical team or call the suicide hotline. It was actually ChatGPT that encouraged me to think about transcranial magnetic stimulation, among other options. I did end up getting T.M.S., and it was like a miracle. I wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t have this outlet. I understand this is a new technology and it’s not a replacement for medical care, but in my case it was an amazing supplement."

Writes Sarah K., in a letter to the NYT commenting on the op-ed "Re "What My Daughter Told ChatGPT Before She Took Her Life."

There's also this letter responding to the same op-ed, from a woman whose 31-year-old daughter killed herself: "To our knowledge, our daughter did not have access to ChatGPT. As limited as it is and should be, I wonder if it could possibly serve as a type of cathartic journaling? In reading some of the comments from people who had contemplated or had made unsuccessful suicide attempts, I was reminded of our daughter’s overriding fear of the loss of her personal agency, which prevented full disclosure and honesty on her part."