Sunrise — 6:23, 7:07, 7:10, 7:12.

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"People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday."

Said one reporter, quoted in "'It’s not a good place right now’: CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom/'People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday,’ one source told The Independent about the mood inside CBS News right now" (The Independent).

Network staffers also told The Independent that Weiss would have a tough time gaining the respect of the newsroom because they see her as something of a “political operative,” adding that CBS News is already “not a welcoming place for outsiders.” “There are so many people who've come in here and been chewed up and spit out that the idea that somebody that we don't want is going to come in here and somehow manage to survive this is, I think, laughable,” the CBS reporter declared. “So she's in for, I would venture to guess, a rough ride.”

"After years of inarticulate unease in social situations, they felt freed by the framework of neurodivergence, and embraced by the community that came along with it."

"Since then I’ve heard accounts from people who received midlife diagnoses of binge eating disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety. Nearly all of them said the diagnosis provided relief. Sometimes it led to an effective treatment. But sometimes, simply identifying the problem — putting a name to it — seemed to help...."

From "Autism, A.D.H.D., Anxiety: Can a Diagnosis Make You Better? As our diagnostic categories expand to include ever milder versions of disease, researchers propose that the act of naming a malady can itself bring relief" (NYT).

"A few years ago, critics began to say that this trend had overshot and was beginning to do real harm. Some say that enlargement of the tent has come at a cost to the most severely ill people, who have lost the attention of the medical establishment. Others say it’s not helping people with milder illnesses, either, especially if they are young. Diagnosis, they say, can set in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy.... Researchers, digging into the downstream effects of diagnoses, are beginning to see this effect play out over the long term. Diagnoses do lock you in...."

Not mentioned in the article: transgenderism.

"She interviewed elders in the community about traditional yogurt recipes.... Then her grandmother said, 'Oh, do you know that I used to use ants?'"

"... Mutlu Sirakova’s uncle gave the research team a crash course in ant yogurt making. The team took four red wood ants and dropped them in a small container of warm milk. They then sealed the container, buried it in the ant hill, and left it there overnight. The next day, the researchers removed the insects from the partially coagulated concoction and gave it a taste. It 'had a slightly tangy taste with mild herbaceousness and pronounced flavors of grass-fed fat,' according to the research paper...."

From "This Traditional Yogurt Recipe’s Secret Ingredient Has 6 Legs/Scientists recreated a formula involving ants and milk that is used in Bulgarian villages to yield yogurt with an herbaceous flavor" (NYT).

"They determined that the ants contributed several types of acids and enzymes that worked together to coagulate the milk. These include formic acid, which the ants produce as a defense mechanism, as well as strains of lactic and acetic acids produced by bacteria living in the ants’ guts. And once the ants start the yogurt culture, more yogurt can be created by adding additional milk — no need for more insects."

I like the part where they buried the container in the ant hill. I don't think that figured into the scientific explanation. It made me think of folk remedies that have burying something as a step. For example, speaking of grandmothers, my grandmother said you could cure a wart by cutting open a potato, rubbing it on the wart, then burying the potato. Maybe there was some curative chemical in the potato — akin to the formic acid in the ants — but the burying must be imagined magic.

"Just a night earlier, Mr. Trump had posted an A.I.-generated video of his budget chief, Russell T. Vought, dressed as the grim reaper, wielding a scythe..."

"... while A.I. versions of Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance (both draped in black cloaks as well) played percussion set to the Blue Öyster Cult jam '(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.'"

From "The White House Can’t Decide: Is the Shutdown Bad or Good? Is it 'fun' and an 'unprecedented opportunity,' or is it 'madness' that must end? Depends who’s talking" by Shawn McCreesh in the NYT.

"It remained unclear how soon any concrete steps to end the conflict might be taken, however."

Key line in "Israel Says It Will Work With Trump Gaza Plan; Hamas Says It Will Release Hostages/Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ready to work with the White House to end the war, but questions remain about Hamas’s future in Gaza and whether it will agree to disarm" (NYT).

Trump delivered an ultimatum. The response was we don't want it to be an ultimatum. 

No comment.

I'm reading "What Was Best About the ‘Best American Poetry’? After four decades, the annual book series is drawing to a close. Our columnist looks at what it all meant" (NYT).

By convention, the poets in each volume are invited to comment on their chosen poem. A surprising number assert the poem’s events are factual, true. Some claim the poem is self-explanatory; others explain rather overabundantly. Some abstain entirely, or use the space to deflect. See Charles Bukowski, best in 1993: “The more said about a poem, the less it becomes.” Depends on the poem. Rae Armantrout’s “Soft Money,” best in 2011, is very funny: 'They’re sexy because they pretend/not to need you,/but they’re lying,/which degrades them./They’re beneath you/and it’s hot.' It’s made even funnier by her note that reveals she was mocking Duran Duran."

Sunrise — 6:31, 7:02.

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"The convention is one of the many ways that monks around the country are working to demonstrate the modern relevance of a religion that some young people see as old fashioned, esoteric and..."

"... relegated to secluded mountaintop temples.... ... Buddhism faces a particularly steep challenge in South Korea, where Protestantism, a branch of Christianity, overtook it to become the most popular religion for the first time in the latest census. In South Korea and some other Asian countries, Christianity tends to be associated with modernity and rationality, while Buddhism and folk religions are often seen as more old-fashioned, Professor Chia said. Some young people at the Busan expo said they were trying to shake that idea. South Koreans tend to see the religion as one that is for older people and can only be encountered at 'temples deep in the mountains,' said Ju Yeo-jin, 30, a vendor selling casual streetwear style clothing and accessories, wearing a pageboy cap over her short bleached hair. 'The Buddhism I’ve experienced is fun and cool. I want to convey that feeling.'"

I'm reading "Is South Korea’s 'Buddhistcore' Aesthetic a Fad or a Spiritual Awakening? Young South Koreans are buying Buddhist merch. Monks and experts hope the buzz will translate into deeper engagement" (NYT).

I think Americans associate Buddhism with modernity and rationality — but not because of expos and "merch"! To me, it seems modern and rational to retreat to a temple deep in the mountains. Maybe to young people the religion of one's own region will always seem "old-fashioned" and based in tradition. Just imagine people from elsewhere looking over and perhaps it will seem newly modern. Or what the hell, buy a "red heart-shaped magnet reading, 'Sentient beings I love you'" or "key chains of the Buddha in neon and with hearts for eyes, and streetwear-style T-shirts with slogans like 'Shut up and meditate.'" Maybe that will work.

"The White House will restore $187 million in cuts to law enforcement funding that would have devastated New York’s intelligence and counterterrorism operations..."

"... following a bipartisan effort to reinstate the funds, administration officials told The New York Times on Friday.The push, which included personal appeals from Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, as well as several of the state’s Republican House members, has been underway since news of the cuts began trickling out over the weekend.The cuts, which represented the largest federal defunding of police operations in New York in decades, were made by the Department of Homeland Security, without the approval of President Trump, White House officials said...."

The NYT reports.

Without the approval of President Trump is interesting. 

The way it was done, it scared the hell out of New York, and then Trump got the advantage of being seen setting things right.

Here's the Althouse/Meade text conversation after I (blue) sent a link to the article (and Meade highlighted "without the approval of President Trump"):

"The issue of minority gun ownership has long been fraught. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney argued in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Black people..."

"... should not be recognized as citizens because it would give them the right 'to keep and carry arms wherever they want.' Even after Black people became citizens entitled to Second Amendment rights, they often had to deal with discriminatory gun laws limiting their access to firearms.... 'The trans people I know, both gun owners and others, see the prospect of the D.O.J. taking trans people’s guns as a prelude to atrocity,' Eden Fenn, a young trans woman, told me. She called herself 'the definition of a reluctant gun owner,' describing her ownership as a precautionary measure against the potential of anti-trans violence.... Mental health is often weaponized against the trans community.... [T]here are legitimate concerns about the high rates of depression and suicidal ideation among trans people.... Everyone I spoke with talked about their gun-safety plans. Some suggested that it should be normalized to offload your guns to a friend while going through a traumatic experience.... There are no easy answers—only a delicate calculus to be made...."

Writes Grace Byron, in "The Complexities of Trans Gun Ownership/In the face of threats and harassment, some trans Americans are becoming gun owners—only to be targeted by the same movements that claim to defend gun rights" (The New Yorker).

"The judge ruled that the hired male escorts involved in freak-offs can be considered victims in the context of sentencing."

"And he ruled that Mr. Combs does not get the benefit of having accepted responsibility for his crimes. The judge said the defense’s narrative of freak-offs as nothing more than voluntary sex between consenting adults was 'flatly inconsistent with both reality and any acceptance of responsibility.'... [T]he judge’s explanations do not bode well for the defendant."

From the NYT coverage of the sentencing hearing for Sean Combs, happening now.

UPDATE, 11:34: The prosecution has argued, and now it's the defense. This is interesting:

"Bari Weiss to be named top editor at CBS News/Paramount Skydance will acquire the journalist’s publication, the Free Press, which she started after quitting the New York Times in 2020."

The Washington Post reports.

A tinge of red arrives in the forest.

Yesterday, near Lake Mendota, around 2 in the afternoon.

"What type of question is that, dude? My guy, how do I assess this season? We just lost! How do you think I assess it? You tell me. What's a loss? We lost. How do you assess it? It's a loss. We lost."

I asked Manny Machado how he would assess the 2025 season. Here is what he said to me. @CBS8 | #FightForTheFaithful #Postseason #Padres pic.twitter.com/es85lKSj99

— Jake Garegnani (@JakeGaregnani) October 3, 2025

Thanks to Manny Machado for making me remember my old "clear speech" tag.

ADDED: I felt like I hadn't used it in a long time, but clicking on the tag now, I see I use it a lot. I like when people speak very directly. Using the tag, for me, is like giving an award. I acknowledge achievement in clear speech.

These are all things the President of the United States posted on social media 8 hours ago.

pic.twitter.com/na2ivYVFoT

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2025

Is it still hard to believe that the President of the United States posts things like this? He is taunting. He's giving material that will be snapped up and used to say (once again) that he's a racist. And — that last one — that he is grandiose. But this is what we have now. We (collectively) voted for it. He's not bland. And it is — all of it — comedy. He's keeping our spirits up. Some of us have a good spirit about it. They're laughing — maybe even laughing off the budget crisis. Others of us have inflamed spirits, angry spirits. And according to Trump, they come from hell. They've been giving him hell for years. He's entitled to laugh at them. I'd prefer more dignity, but that's more Trump 45, and what did that get him?

"In northern Arizona my zinnias and cosmos are still flowering. My cannabis is half harvested (2 of 4 plants)..."

"... and it looks like I'll be yielding at least 6 lbs of dried flower. I don't even like the stuff, but decided to grow it for a lark this year. It is legal to grow 6 plants after all. I'm going to end up with vast quantities of the stuff, and it is apparently very strong. All my pot smoking friends and relatives are delighted with my new hobby. It's better than when I was making my own whiskey. That led to too much drinking for me. The funny thing is that this is entirely legal, and the whiskey was not."

Wrote the commenter who calls himself "Old and slow" in last night's sunrise post — the open thread.

I should reformat this post and give it the headline: How to win friends and put people under the influence.

I'm expressing no opinion on what's "entirely legal" in Arizona, but I was motivated to do a little fact check on ChatGPT. I had several questions. You can do your own research. I'll just quote my favorite sentence from the response I got: "The law doesn’t police casual social reciprocity ('hey thanks for dinner, here’s a little bud'), but if there’s a pattern that looks like payment-in-kind, it can cross into illegal distribution."

Sunrise — 6:31, 6:54, 6:57, 7:00.

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ADDED: A bit of video of the swimmer — video by Meade, with me on the shore:

"Ziz became increasingly disillusioned and began trying to assemble 'a cabal' of 'abnormally intrinsically good people' and turn them into..."

"... 'Gervais-sociopaths' who would, like those at the top of the organizational hierarchy in 'The Office,' the sitcom co-written by Ricky Gervais, be ruthless in achieving their goals. She referred to herself as 'Darth Ziz, interim de facto leader of the vegan Sith,' a reference to a Star Wars sect that uses the dark side of the Force. In 2019, Ziz and four friends were arrested after staging a protest at a Rationalist gathering, where they accused two of the movement’s key institutions of betraying their mission to protect humanity from A.I. and of covering up pedophilia and sexual abuse.... Some Rationalists denounced the Zizians as dangerous, noting among other things that two people who had engaged with their 'mental tech,' including a method of trying to put half of their brains to sleep at a time, had killed themselves. But others in the community were sympathetic.... [Ophelia] Bauckholt was in the latter camp.... She frequently discussed the Zizians, but as far as Dr. Kolomatskaia knew, the subject was little more than a conjectural pastime. 'We’re like, "The Zizians are dropping like flies. Why don’t we prevent them from dying?"' she recalled. 'It’s a curiosity. It’s a very fun thing to talk about every week.'"

From "Ophelia Disappeared: A Wall Street Analyst and a Deadly Shootout/The group was passionately vegan, mostly transgender and highly educated. Seven of them are now in jail. This is the story of one who did not survive" (NYT). I'd give you a gift link, but I've already done 2 gift links today, and the Times only gives me 10 per month. So you're on your own, extrapolating the story or finding your own way in. 

"A Russian scientist who is close to President Putin has told a forum of schoolteachers in Moscow that the West is planning to exterminate the majority of the Earth’s population..."

"... leaving a tiny elite whose needs will be serviced by robots. Mikhail Kovalchuk, the head of Russia’s Kurchatov nuclear research institute... alleged that western countries were plotting to unleash a deadly virus to reduce the number of people on Earth. He also claimed the West was using LGBT and child-free ideologies to cut populations because robots would soon be able to work better and more effectively.... 'They introduced the LGBT agenda and for those who didn’t go along with it, they offered a second option — the child-free family. It’s working brilliantly. In a generation or two, there’ll be no continuation of their bloodlines. Only a small elite, the ones they actually need, will remain. As for the rest — the people they don’t even see as human — they’ll be eliminated with biological weapons. A virus or something like that with a 90 per cent mortality rate will come along and mow them down'.... Kovalchuk, who has been described as one of Putin’s close friends, told... the teachers that their country’s only friends 'are the army and the navy'...."

From "Putin scientist claims West will use a virus to kill most humans/It’s all part of an LGBT conspiracy to depopulate the planet, according to a friend of the president" (London Times).

"FBI Director Kash Patel ended the bureau's long-standing partnership with the Anti-Defamation League...."

"His announcement came after the ADL faced right-wing backlash for its web pages on the Christian Identity movement and Turning Point USA, the group founded by slain MAGA activist Charlie Kirk. Patel did not elaborate on why the FBI was severing its ties with the organization now.... 'James Comey wrote "love letters" to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them - a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans,' Patel wrote in a Wednesday X post. 'That era is OVER... This FBI won't partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.'... Following the wave of backlash late last month, the ADL moved to scrap its 'Glossary of Extremism,' which had included information on Kirk's group, saying it contained 'outdated' entries and that 'a number of entries' had been 'intentionally misrepresented and misused.'..."

Reports Axios.

"Pope Leo blesses a block of ice and then stands there while these communist freaks do some kind of weird pagan Earth worshipping hippy ritual."

That's Matt Walsh's interpretation. Decide for yourself:

Horrific. The whole thing. Pope Leo blesses a block of ice and then stands there while these communist freaks do some kind of weird pagan Earth worshipping hippy ritual. The leader of the Catholic Church shouldn’t be anywhere near this nonsense. What the hell are we doing here https://t.co/LEpC3u141T

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 1, 2025

"In April 1965, the magazine published his extraordinary cover image of an 18-week-old fetus, luminous in its amniotic sac..."

"... seemingly floating through space, along with an extensive photo essay. Nilsson had worked closely with a Stockholm hospital, where he had a makeshift studio set up. He’d get a call when a woman had had a miscarriage or came in for an abortion, which had been legally permissible in Sweden since 1938 if the woman’s life was in danger. The photographer would then rush over with his Hasselblad camera. Only one image in the photo essay was of a live fetus in utero. All the others, including the groundbreaking cover, were of fetuses that had been surgically removed. In the 1980s, after learning that his pictures were being used at anti-abortion demonstrations, Nilsson refused to allow them to be republished...."

From "The 25 Most Influential Magazine Covers of All Time/Four editors, a creative director and a visual artist met to debate and discuss the best of print media — and its enduring legacy" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see all 25 covers and the story behind each of them).

I vividly remember that Life Magazine cover, "Drama of Life Before Birth," April 30, 1965. If I remember correctly — from 60 years ago when I was 14 — the article had nothing to do with abortion and readers were shielded from the notion that these unborn children were dead. We were invited to feast our eyes on the miracle of life, and we had never seen pictures like this before.

That Life cover ranks 6th on the list, well above the cover I would have put first, Saul Steinberg's "View of the World From 9th Avenue," which is only #14.

"They... filled the cracks in my dodgy vertebra with this human cement stuff. I mean, I’ve got so many plates and bolts inside me already..."

"... why not pour a slab of concrete in there too?... Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder. And at some point I’m gonna have to let him in. The funny thing is, I used to worry more about my mortality when I was younger. It’s weird. You get closer to the end — the very thing you were scared of your whole life — and suddenly the weight’s lifted off you.... When the end does come, I don’t want to be cremated. It’s like you were never here. You’re just a bag of dust. That’s not for me. I wanna make the flowers grow.... It’s just crazy how quickly a lifetime goes.... Life’s so short...."

Writes Ozzy Osbourne, in "Ozzy Osbourne: How Sharon and I pulled off my crazy last gig/Less than three weeks before he died, the ailing Black Sabbath frontman played one final concert, for 42,000 fans at Villa Park. In an extract from his posthumous memoir, he shares the inside story of the biggest miracle of his unlikely career" (London Times).

"The idea that you could turn the clock back and try to recreate a world that never was dominated by, you know, let’s say it: white men of a certain persuasion, a certain religion, a certain point of view, a certain ideology, it’s just doing such damage to what we should be aiming for."

Said Hillary Clinton, quoted in "Hillary Clinton ripped for tone-deaf remarks about white men of 'a certain religion' damaging the US" (NY Post).

Tone deaf?! It's not tone deaf. She's precisely picked up the tone. Perfect pitch. She's talking exactly like the people she's talking with. I'm sure it's quite jaunty and subtle and good humored for them. How do you get to tone deaf? The NY Post is tone deaf. Hillary is right on key.

Reading further, I see the argument is that she's supposed to still be constraining her remarks to fit the ongoing mourning period for Charlie Kirk. The NY Post quotes random tweets that accuse Clinton of creating a permission structure for killing white Christian men. Some unnamed person tweeted: "Two weeks after Charlie Kirk is assassinated, Hillary Clinton reminds everyone that white Christian men are dangerous and doing damage to America. These people have no intention of turning down the temperature. They know they’re encouraging what happened." And somebody else tweeted: "Hillary Clinton makes yet another case for violence against white Christian men — the constant drumbeat against huge segments of the population is dehumanizing and dangerous. Her focus on Christianity is chilling — especially given the fact that she can’t bring herself to even name the religion."

If the New York Post were really concerned about cranking up dangerous hostility, they wouldn't go looking for things like that and printing them. Hillary wasn't saying anything about fomenting violence, just arguing against the looking to the past as a model for going forward without the limitations of the past. Let's do it again, but without the lack of diversity. It won't work.

Goodbye to Jane Goodall.

 

From "Jane Goodall: A Life in Pictures The primatologist gained scientific acclaim for her work with chimpanzees and then later used her fame to champion conservation" (NYT)(free access link, so you can see the pictures).

Facebook keeps pushing this meme at me — a quote from Willie Nelson, supposedly referencing Charlie Kirk.

"If you want people to have kind words when you pass, you should say kind words when you’re alive." And then, it says "After facing backlash, Willie Nelson added: 'And I’ll stand behind this. Be kind, now more than ever."

That didn't sound right. Do most people just believe these stories that are stuck in between posts from actual friends and family? My basic reaction is to scroll quickly past anything that has a celebrity commenting about another celebrity, but for this one, because Facebook kept serving it to me, I went to Grok for a fact check. Was this quote in any actual news sources?

A liar or just woefully ignorant?

lol
pic.twitter.com/G4GSTfijFR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2025

The hand-raising at the June 27, 2019 Democratic candidates debate is a powerful visual retort, but when I click the fact-check icon at Franken's post, X's own AI says:

• Al Franken's post critiques Vice President JD Vance's recent claim during a 2025 government shutdown debate that Democrats seek to provide health benefits to undocumented immigrants, framing it as either deliberate falsehood or profound misunderstanding. 

• Vance's statement targets a Democratic funding proposal to reimburse states for emergency Medicaid services to "lawfully present" immigrants, such as refugees and asylees, but federal law explicitly bars undocumented individuals from enrolling in such programs. 

• Independent fact-checks, including from FactCheck.org and The New York Times, describe the Republican portrayal as misleading, as it exaggerates limited emergency reimbursements into broad taxpayer-funded coverage for all

"Publicly, though, Mr. Trump’s deputies still insisted that they had not politicized the funding lapse."

"Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, maintained instead that the layoffs, in particular, were necessary because of the realities of the budget."

Those are the last 2 sentences of a news article in the NYT with a headline that states a contrary opinion as if it were fact: "White House Uses Shutdown to Maximize Pain and Punish Political Foes/The Trump administration forged ahead with plans to conduct mass layoffs, as the fiscal standoff appeared to intensify."

We all agree with the opinion, of course, don't we?

Is the White House using the shutdown to maximize pain and punish political foes?

No, it is simply dealing with the realities of the shutdown.

No, but it should.

Yes, and it should.

Yes, and it ought instead to deal neutrally with the realities of the shutdown.

Unlike the NYT, I refrain from reading minds. I stand aloof and await further information.

 

pollcode.com free polls

Sunrise — 6:33, 6:41, 7:00, 7:11.

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"She later cast doubt on the suicide ruling, saying his death had been 'a big mistake' and that they had planned out their life together."

"Mr Thompson penned what friends believed was a suicide note, which was published by Rolling Stone soon after his death. 'No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun,' the note, which was addressed to his wife, read. 'No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt.'"

From "FBI to re-examine suicide of Hunter S Thompson at wife’s request/Anita Thompson wants fresh inquiry into death after writer was ruled to have shot himself 20 years ago, leaving a note that was published by Rolling Stone" (London Times).

There's no new evidence of foul play. It just seems to be a widow's interest in seeing the self-shooting as an accident. I'd say I don't see why the FBI should expend its resources on this, but the article doesn't mention the FBI, only the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. That's the kind of confusion I wade into when I look for news of America in the London Times. Maybe they don't call anything the "Bureau of Investigation" over there. Anyway, it seems to me that the written note should be the last word. Yes, it's humorous, but that doesn't mean it was only a joke.

"The last time Senate Democrats found themselves taking the blame for a government shutdown, they quickly caved..."

"... and raced to reopen federal agencies in 2018, as their more moderate members demanded a fast resolution after only three days. This shutdown could be different. The Democrats from red states who decried the shutdown strategy as a foolish miscalculation and pressed for an immediate reversal in the showdown with President Trump seven years ago are long gone. The ideological makeup of the party has shifted to the left, and Democrats are now bracing for an extended confrontation with the White House and congressional Republicans, despite the clear political risks. The same dynamic is at play in the G.O.P., which has lurched to the right under Mr. Trump and no longer sees room for compromise."

Writes Carl Hulse, in "Democrats See No Need to Capitulate, Nor Republicans to Cut a Deal/The last time Senate Democrats found themselves taking the blame for a government shutdown, they quickly caved. That’s less likely to happen now" (NYT).

How does spending some time in shutdown achieve anything? Doesn't everyone know everything they need to know before the shutdown even begins? Are they just waiting to annoy and otherwise torment us so they can then poll us to see who we blame? I think they already know that everyone blames the party they started out disliking more. Nevertheless, we must endure the bad political theater.

Cranes celebrate the arrival of October.

Video by Meade on this lovely first day of October, the most beautiful month of the year here in Madison, Wisconsin.

Ezra Klein and virtually everything.

I'm just trying to get through this New Yorker interview with Ezra Klein, "Ezra Klein Argues for Big-Tent Politics":

I agree with Ta-Nehisi [Coates] on virtually every view he has on things that Charlie Kirk had said. ... I have poured virtually every ounce of myself into preventing everything that Kirk poured himself into creating. For more people than I had understood, the sense that we are in any way in community together—the sense that we are still in a place where we are all practicing and doing politics—has already eroded. Something that’s very alive for me is a feeling that we are not that far from national rupture. So many things that we like to say “can’t happen here” have already been happening here.

[And who do you blame for that?]

I mean, I blame Donald Trump quite specifically for that. I think that the way he has acted in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder has been an exhibition of virtually everything that is wrong....

Klein had said something gracious about Kirk. Coates attacked him. And Klein adopted this strange way of talking about himself. It's so effusive yet vague. Instead of saying "I think we are close to a national rupture," he says "Something that’s very alive for me is a feeling that we are not that far from national rupture." He sounds like a comic character in a play.

Maybe you've seen the recent podcast with Klein and Coates going head to head. I don't know if you can bear to listen to that, but I highly recommend this commentary on it from AntifascistDad, who focuses of Klein's Buddhist turn:

"I was there to see it all. Total Scum!!! President DJT."

Wrote Trump, on Truth Social, just now.

That intense outburst is presented as a reaction to the NY Post article: "FBI surveilled Rep. Scott Perry before seizing his cell phone as part of ‘Arctic Frost’ probe into 2020 election."

"Bad Bunny’s critics have zeroed in on his criticism of Trump’s agenda, his exclusively Spanish-language lyrics, his gender-fluid fashion choices and..."

"... his comments in a recent interview sharing that part of the reason he was not touring his latest album, 'Debí Tirar Más Fotos,' in the U.S. mainland was out of concern his concerts would become a target for Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids."

From "Why Bad Bunny’s selection as the Super Bowl halftime headliner is sparking MAGA fury/The Puerto Rican recording artist opposed Trump in 2024 and is not offering tour dates in the U.S. mainland to avoid exposing his fans to ICE raids" (WaPo).

"Mr. Combs’s lawyers acknowledged that their client had assaulted women in his life, but they argued those actions did not suit the crimes he was charged with."

"Given the jury’s verdict, they have asserted that testimony about violence should play no role in the judge’s decision. 'The court cannot use acquitted conduct in any way to enhance Mr. Combs’s sentence,' they wrote in a recent filing, saying that referring to that conduct in determining the sentence would raise serious constitutional issues. Prosecutors have argued just the opposite. They asked the judge to consider the full evidence at trial when determining Mr. Combs’s sentence. 'Even with the conviction on just these two charges, there is serious, serious, relevant conduct here that will merit a lengthy period of incarceration,' Maurene Comey, one of the prosecutors, told Judge Subramanian during a bail hearing after the verdict was announced. (Ms. Comey was later fired from the Justice Department without explanation and has sued the Trump administration over her termination.)"

From "What to Know Before Sean Combs’s Sentencing/The music mogul will be in court on Friday when a judge is scheduled to announce Mr. Combs’s penalty for convictions on two prostitution-related offenses" (NYT).

The prosecution wants at least 11 years and 3 months in prison, though the probation officials say the guidelines put the upper limit at 7 years and 3 months. The defense — which says that the crimes he was convicted of involved only consensual sex — is asking for 14 months at the most. He's already been in the detention center for a year.

Sunrise — 6:35, 6:41, 6:56, 6:57.

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"The Trump administration’s push earlier this year to arrest and deport international students for their pro-Palestinian activism was illegal, a federal judge ruled Tuesday..."

"... calling the crackdown a 'truly scandalous and unconstitutional suppression of free speech.' In a sweeping rebuke, U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston said that the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department sought to target non-citizens 'for speaking out' with the 'goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated' students. Young [a Reagan appointee] decried the administration’s conduct in striking terms, quoting President Ronald Reagan’s declaration that freedom must 'be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.”

From "Trump administration illegally targeted pro-Palestinian protesters, judge rules/The efforts to detain and deport noncitizen activists earlier this year represented an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment, the ruling says" (WaPo)(gift link).

Best bad headline from the Hegsethathon.

The award goes to The New Republic: "Hegseth Summoned Military Leaders to Say 'FAFO' in Disturbing Speech."

I think it's ludicrous for a journalistic article to call it a "disturbing speech."  Who is disturbed? The headline writer? Were the military leaders disturbed? All of them? Some of them? Don't create fake objectivity. Someone needs to have been disturbed. I want to know who and why.

From the article:

“To our enemies: FAFO,” Hegseth said, using an acronym that translates to “Fuck around and find out.”

Hegseth ordered hundreds of U.S. military officials around the globe to meet him at a spontaneous assembly in Virginia.... The message shocked members of the U.S. military, who could not recall another instance in which a defense secretary summoned so many commanders for a sudden in-person meeting—especially without a clear rationale.

Was it a "disturbing speech" because of what Hegseth said or was a "disturbing speech" because it was disturbing to have to travel and sit in the audience to hear?

"Even brands are acknowledging the stakes of putting yourself out there — a hallmark of cringe — when things could turn out poorly."

"Earlier this month, Nike reworked its longtime tagline 'Just Do It' into a new campaign called 'Why Do It?' The ad, narrated by Tyler, the Creator, depicts athletes, many of them mid-game, as he asks why they are trying if failure is an option.... Reflecting on how her phrase, cringe mountain, had spread, [creator consultant Erin] Mallett said it was already a common feeling that was in need of a name. 'I gave them a personal mantra and maybe just an opposing excuse,' she said. 'If someone goes, "Oh, but you shouldn’t do that." Now my excuse is, "But I can, because it’s OK." You can’t get to the land of cool without first climbing cringe mountain.'"

From "Climbing Cringe Mountain With Gen Z/Raised online and under constant scrutiny, young adults are leaning into embarrassment as a necessary part of growing up" (NYT).

"It’s about generational politics; mothers against daughters; an older, tougher feminism versus 'woke' millennials."

"It’s about whether 'being kind' is truly important or just another way to get women to be submissive.... Here we have what we so rarely see in movies, two powerful women in a showdown over something other than a man...."

From "Why did J K Rowling pick now to hit back at Emma Watson? The author has posted a withering statement about the actress’s views on trans issues, says Helen Rumbelow."

"Under the agreement, $22 million will be paid on Trump’s behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to constructing a $200 million ballroom that Trump is building at the White House."

From "YouTube forced to pay Trump $22m for new White House ballroom/The settlement with the Alphabet-owned company totalled $24.5m and was related to suspending the president’s account following the US Capitol riot" (London Times).

Humberto wooed Imelda away from the Carolinas.

Link.

What a crazy picture this afternoon of Hurricane Humberto and Imelda flirting. pic.twitter.com/qRDnJTKH1D

— Max Velocity (@MaxVelocityWX) September 29, 2025

Sunrise stairway.

This morning, at 6:58, on the shore of Lake Mendota.

"Sources suggest that there are no other parties involved and that it was a lack of intimacy that led to the split, citing their busy schedules...."

"More significantly, there are suggestions that Urban was frustrated not just by their physical separation (after all, this is not the first time he’s been on tour and she’s been on location) but by Kidman’s unavailability in a broader sense. He’s said to have 'called her out' (allegedly in the presence of friends) and challenged her, telling her he was unhappy with the growing space between them. It seems that he instigated the split and it is he who has moved out of the family home. She is said to be blindsided."

From "What led to Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s shocking split/A few months ago, the country music singer was publicly telling his actress wife, ‘I love you, babygirl.’ Now their 19-year marriage seems over" (WaPo).

ALSO: "We all recognised that her marriage to Urban — a beta male by comparison [to Tom Cruise] — was a vote for something closer to normality, and moving to Nashville confirmed that."

Hegseth gives the military leaders a talking-to.

Only one word?

1. "'Hypercharged' Is the Only Word for This Supreme Court" — headline for a NYT interview.

2. "The only word for this is 'transplendent'" — the Shelley Duvall character in "Annie Hall."

ADDED: This rhetoric is really a form of hyperbole. Surely there are other words... or what's a thesaurus for? I do think this device can be used well, but it can also be pretty silly. You can back yourself into a corner with a promise you can't keep, as in the perennially hilarious:

3. "America is a nation that can be defined in a single word: [????]" — Joe Biden.

Raw trading instinct.

I'm reading "Ex-Wall Street Star Accused of Abusing Women in Penthouse Sex ‘Dungeon’/Federal prosecutors say Howard Rubin, who faces sex trafficking charges, took victims to his apartment, where a bedroom was painted red, soundproofed and fitted with devices to use on the women" (NYT).

Mr. Rubin was prominently featured in Michael Lewis’s 1989 book “Liar’s Poker,” about Salomon Brothers in the 1980s. Mr. Rubin, according to the book, joined the firm in 1982 and became known as one of its wiliest traders. He left in 1985 for substantially more pay at Merrill Lynch.

“Of all the traders, Rubin displayed raw trading instinct,” Mr. Lewis wrote.

He became an object of fascination on Wall Street, Mr. Lewis wrote, for his application of behavioral research to mortgage sales. He later became infamous for his role in a $250 million loss in 1987 at Merrill Lynch.... After leaving Merrill Lynch, Mr. Rubin became a fund manager at Bear Stearns and then Soros Fund Management.....

"People always ask, 'Who’s your ideal reader?' Mine is somebody who reads a few pages and then falls asleep and has a fantastic dream."

Said Eliot Weinberger, in an "Art of the Essay" interview in The Paris Review.

If that sounds like the role of reading in your life, here's Weinberger's "An Elemental Thing" (commission earned). The description of the book at Amazon says: "he leads us through histories, fables, and meditations about the ten thousand things in the universe: the wind and the rhinoceros, Catholic saints and people named Chang, the Mandaeans on the Iran-Iraq border and the Kaluli in the mountains of New Guinea."

From the interview: "it’s a book that I hope people will open at random, rather than read sequentially."

It's hard to believe the President of the United States posts things like this, but here you are.

pic.twitter.com/JzQYLShOCt

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2025

And I'm not even talking about "medbed." What was that? Satire? 

Sunrise — 6:31, 6:53, 6:56.

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“Trump called it ‘a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization,’ speaking alongside Netanyahu following hours of meetings at the White House.”

From “Netanyahu agrees to Trump plan for Gaza deal, but Hamas still a question/The Monday meeting between Trump and the Israeli prime minister was aimed at renewing serious peace talks” (WaPo)(gift link).

ADDED: Netanyahu: “This can be done the easy way or the hard way.”

"The idea of tech workers approaching their jobs with an intense, at times almost religious, devotion is 'part of the DNA of Silicon Valley culture'..."

"... said Carolyn Chen, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of 'Work Pray Code.'  She also noted that a strain of 'heroic masculine culture' in tech enforces the expectation that people should be working all the time."

From "Would You Work ‘996’? The Hustle Culture Trend Is Taking Hold in Silicon Valley. The number combination refers to a work schedule — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — that has its origins in China’s hard-charging tech scene" (NYT).

"Mr. Gutfeld’s style mixes anti-liberal insult comedy with relentless punchlines about women’s bodies — their age, their weight, their sexual attractiveness."

"Each night, Ms. Timpf sits at his right-hand side, playfully challenging him while staking out an alternate style of physical humor — one that centers her own experience inhabiting a woman’s body. I met Ms. Timpf on a Tuesday morning in August, on her second day back at 'Gutfeld!' after a reconstructive surgery in which the tissue expanders inserted behind her chest muscle during the mastectomy she underwent in March were replaced with permanent breast implants. She wore baggy jeans and a tight gray T-shirt, which she had second-guessed that morning. “Would I be better off wearing a looser shirt?' she asked. 'Something about breast cancer is — I don’t want to say embarrassing,' she said. 'People are like, Are you breastfeeding? And you have to be like, I just cut my tits off.' She added, 'It’s a weird thing, which is part of the reason why I’ve decided to be so open about it.'... She will have her nipples reconstructed over the next year. It will be her first tattoo. 'I don’t think that those are small things,' Ms. Timpf said. 'I think that those are big things.'"

That's from the New York Times: "A Baby. A Double Mastectomy. Many Opinions From Fox News Viewers. Kat Timpf got pregnant, got breast cancer, then got back to work on the political comedy show 'Gutfeld!' — all as a culture war brews over ambition, motherhood and women’s health."

Knees news.

1. "'We will not live on our knees’: A defiant Comey mounts a video defense/The former FBI director said he is innocent..." (Politico).

2. "FBI fires agents seen kneeling in iconic photo during George Floyd protests five years ago" (CNN).

"If the precedent set by Mr. Trump takes hold, America may be entering a period when each new administration takes aim at the last one in a cycle of retaliation..."

"... a what-goes-around-comes-around pattern more familiar in authoritarian countries than in developed Western democracies. Even presidents more restrained than Mr. Trump may succumb to the temptation to follow at least some of his example."

Writes Peter Baker, in "In Going After His Foes, Trump Sets a Precedent That Could Haunt His Allies/President Trump’s retribution campaign risks ushering in a cycle of retaliation in which each new administration takes aim at the last one" (NYT).

"Even presidents more restrained than Mr. Trump"? You mean, like Biden?

But, we'll be told, what Biden did to Trump is different. I mean, it wasn't "ushering in a cycle of retaliation." That's something that can only be done by someone who didn't start it.

ADDED: From a column Jonathan Turley published last Friday:

Comey will continue to be vilified and lionized by different parts of the population. Yet, this is an ignoble moment that he helped bring about.... Now the man who bragged about nailing Michael Flynn will face the same false statement charge. The man who celebrated the charging of Donald Trump (including obstruction-related charges) will face his own obstruction charge. Whether karma or lawfare, Comey will now have his day in court.

"Grease fraud is a problem, too. In some areas, used cooking oil sells for more than new cooking oil, prompting hucksters to sell..."

"... virgin oil — including palm oil, which is associated with deforestation in Southeast Asia — as if it were used. It’s hard to catch, since fresh oil spiked with a little restaurant grease is almost indistinguishable from the real thing."

Just a snippet of weirdness from the vat of weirdness that is "The used oil from your french fry order may be fueling your next flight" (WaPo)(gift link).

"There is no customary tree as part of the scenery, for one thing, and no country road. This Didi and Gogo while away their endless days inside a kind of tapering tunnel..."

"... that has an enormous gaping mouth at the downstage end, where they perch on its lip, nice and close to the orchestra seats. Visually striking spareness is a hallmark of [director Jamie] Lloyd’s work.... What’s curious in 'Waiting for Godot' is that the textual distillation we have come to expect from Lloyd is largely missing.... [H]e doesn’t seem to have anything to say. That’s disappointing on its own, because the play needs strong directorial focus to land with any force, but particularly so at a time when surely a good chunk of the populace could identify with Didi and Gogo’s sense of exhaustion, futility and despair in the face of a relentlessly brutal world.... This Didi and Gogo speak the words, but without the weight and meaning of the thoughts they have thought countless times before...."

Writes NYT theater critic Laura Collins-Hughes, in "'Waiting for Godot' Review: Cue the Air Guitar/Jamie Lloyd’s pristinely chic Broadway revival of the existential tragicomedy casts the 'Bill & Ted' stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as Samuel Beckett’s clowns" (NYT).

The idea here was to have Bill and Ted play the Didi and Gogo in "Waiting for Godot," and won't fans pack the theater to see that? Isn't that how things are done on Broadway these days? I have a sense of exhaustion, futility and despair in the face of that relentlessly brutal world.

Anyway, here's the painting — "Two Men Contemplating the Moon" — that Beckett said inspired him to write the play:

Is it hard to accept a tunnel instead of a tree and the the moon? A tunnel is sort of like a moonscape, what with the light at the end of it — moonish, no?

Here's that photo I took last March that made me think of a "Godot" set:

And here's one Meade sent me from Presque Isle 2 months later:

The tree is important!

"I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as..."

"... me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right — nay, obligation — to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created."

Writes JK Rowling, on X, responding to a video you can see at the link.

Rowling has kept a silence as long as her antagonists were children, but now she's decided to speak — to write — and no one can out-write her. She continues:

Sunrise — 6:23, 6:54.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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