Sunrise — 7:08.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

Goodbye to Diane Keaton.

Diane Keaton, 1946-2025.

ADDED: I was just thinking of her this morning. On the sunrise walk, we passed a man with a dog and I said to him, "Your dog is neat." And then I wondered why on earth I'd said "neat" and I thought it's like I'm channeling Annie Hall. See: "Lines from 'Annie Hall' Containing the Word 'Neat'" (Grok)(#6 is "We're not having an affair. He's married. He just happens to think I'm neat").

Now I'm looking back over all my old posts with the "Diane Keaton" tag. I see that she came up on the second day of this blog:

"It’s an emotional gas-main explosion, from people who felt unheard, patronized, left behind...."

Writes Michael Hirschorn, explaining why he's voting for Mamdani, in "With Mamdani, the Left Finally Has Its Trump" (NYT).

This is a febrile, statue-toppling time, one with some parallels to the politics of previous moments of authoritarian ascendancy, when hard-left movements sprung up in response to the right. But it’s not quite a “horseshoe” moment, either. That’s the theory that far-left and far-right ideologies often converge around similar ideas in times like these. As we watch Mr. Trump lay waste to multiple generations of conservative dogma, it starts to become clear that ideology of any kind is inadequate to capture what is happening in the electorate.... 

"It’s true that Pynchon can construct a cathedral out of language, but he also seems to have no idea where the light switches are located."

"His fiction’s chief flaws include characters so flimsy they are dead on arrival, superficial plots, a tin ear for dialogue and an adolescent awe of spectacular violence. These are merely the charges that Pynchon cheerfully levies against himself, in the introduction to 'Slow Learner' (1984).... To them I would add: an unfortunate habit of delivering exposition through dialogue ('Let me guess, you’re wondering why are we sending you eight hundred miles out of town'); pacing so robotic it feels lifted from 1950s comic books; an almost compulsive busyness that feels like a kind of horror vacui, a fear of the empty page; flat jokes; wooden romances; ridiculous attempts at menace ('It’s OK, I’m a creature of the streets, all gatted up, don’t trust nobody'); and an uncomfortable fixation on Shirley Temple. Can I confess that this list was compiled with affection, even admiration?"

Writes Parul Sehgal, in "Thomas Pynchon Saw Where America Was Headed. What Does He See Now?/The novelist anticipated our bizarre present. How does his latest book hold up in an age of eroding reality?" (NYT)(reviewing Pynchon's new novel "Shadow Ticket).

"I assumed that I would at least meet with Streep so that she could study my mannerisms and pick up my Ohio accent."

"I straightened up my New Yorker office, expecting a call any day announcing that she was heading over. I mentioned it to friends at work—something along the lines of 'Oh, Meryl Streep might be dropping by, just in case you see a stranger wandering around,' and tried to imagine which gestures of mine she might focus on. Time passed. More time passed. I finally called Ed and asked him when Meryl was coming to see me. He told me she didn’t need to, because she had already created the character on her own."

Writes Susan Orlean, in 'The Making of “Adaptation'/When your quirky book becomes a quirkier movie" (The New Yorker).

"Ed" = Ed Saxon, a co-producer of the movie based on Orlean's book "The Orchid Thief."

"Some of my readers hated the movie and were angry that I had allowed 'The Orchid Thief' to be adapted in that way. My response was to remind them that nothing in the book had changed, no matter what the film had made of it.... We see books as beautiful and meaningful and important and profound, but we see movies as dreamlike. Being a character onscreen transports you forever into another, more enchanted realm."

Woe to the cartoonist who dares to satirize a black person.

I'm reading "VA Dems Are Getting Desperate: Powhatan County Dems Post Blatantly Racist Cartoon of Winsome Earle-Sears" (Twitchy).

Blatantly racist????

How is it even racist at all?

When a particular person is drawn — as an individual and not as a stereotype — it is not racist. It's important to be able to continue the art of cartooning and to treat black public figures the same way as other public figures. We need to be able to keep making fun of power-seekers and power-holders, whatever race they happen to be. The charge of racism here is wrong and dangerous. 

Highly organized to say not highly organized.

New talking point directive just issued #AntifaDoesntExist pic.twitter.com/1BbAe8ql0q

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 10, 2025

"At the meeting her husband handed the Russian leader a 'peace letter' from his wife which called on Putin to restore the 'melodic laughter' to children suffering from the war in Ukraine."

"'Much has unfolded since President Putin received my letter last August,' said Mrs Trump, 55. 'He responded in writing, signalling a willingness to engage with me directly and outlining details regarding the Ukrainian children residing in Russia. 'For the past three months, both sides have participated in several back-channel meetings and calls, all in good faith. My representative has been working directly with President Putin’s team to ensure the safe reunification of children with their families between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, eight children have been rejoined with their families during the past 24 hours.'"

From "Melania Trump secures release of children abducted from Ukraine/The first lady said she was working ‘directly’ with President Putin to release more children that were brought to Russia" (London Times).

"Leaves have fallen for millions of years, so of course plants and animals have come to expect or even rely on them to complete their life cycles."

"It’s our job as ecological gardeners to figure out how to incorporate these natural processes into our landscapes in ways that are both functional and beautiful."

Said Rebecca McMackin, the lead horticulturist for the American Horticultural Society, quoted in "Why Leaving the Leaves Is Better for Your Yard/Keeping leaves in your yard can bolster the number and variety of species around — and the perks go beyond just the fall season" (NYT).

On the way to the sunrise, we noticed the moon... and the autumn leaves.

That's my photo, and this is Meade's:

"President Trump has put Columbus on a list of statues he wants included in his proposed National Garden of American Heroes. This week he said 'We’re back, Italians'..."

"... after he signed a proclamation for Columbus Day, a federal holiday he has called for celebrating after some cities and states have either replaced it or supplemented it with celebrations of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. 'Before our very eyes, left-wing radicals toppled his statues, vandalized his monuments, tarnished his character, and sought to exile him from our public spaces,' the proclamation reads...."

From "Beheaded and Sent to Watery Graves, Columbus Statues Get New Life/More than 30 monuments to Christopher Columbus were toppled or taken down in 2020. Now some are being restored, and finding new, usually less-public homes" (NYT).

The face covering I was about to bemoan... and then wanted to buy for myself.

I'm reading "Why Can’t Fashion See What It Does to Women? A season that included off-putting, sometimes cruel designs left us wondering about what it all means." That's by the NYT fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, and I'm giving you a free-access link so you can read the whole argument and see all the pictures. But I just want to concentrate on one thing.

At Courrèges, Nicolas Di Felice covered the faces of many models, in an otherwise elegant show inspired by the idea of the sun and rising temperatures, and shielded them from view. But even if the shades were meant as protection, the suggestion that a woman would need to hide was problematic....

Hide from the sun?! Is the sun sexist? I spend my life hiding from the sun — going for walks before sunrise or in the shadiest woods. I had a childhood full of sunburns, and the calendar of my old age is studded with dermatology appointments. I'm averse to the ritual of slathering sunblock goo all over. I prefer protective clothing when I can get it. And to me this Courrèges thing is fantastic.

It's not like the other things pictured at the link, e.g. "Arm-trapping 'cocoon' bodysuits at Alaïa, and mouth guards that stretched the face into rictus grins at Margiela."

Here's the Vogue article about the Courrèges show: 

Too rainy to go out for the sunrise today...

... but we got out later. It's still quite green around here. Just a touch of red.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I dedicate this [Nobel Peace P]rize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!"

This recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom.

We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic…

— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) October 10, 2025

Profound and multidimensional disrespect.

It is weird to me that these people don't see the irony of honoring "marginalized communities" by making a beautiful historical building really ugly. https://t.co/j7GEtCFsMY

— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 10, 2025

One of the comments over there: "I haven't seen a single person yet mention that this isn't real graffiti. These are carefully pasted vinyl stickers that will be taken off in a couple months when the exhibition ends. They obviously didn't permanently deface a sacred building."

Good thing they were carefully pasted. They could have been carelessly pasted. And it could have been real spray paint. It's hard to imagine any religion but Christianity inviting and celebrating this kind of humiliation. 

"But one of the things that's so problematic about Colorado's law is that it undermines the well-being of kids that are struggling with gender dysphoria."

"And so Colorado accepts that up to 90 percent of kids who struggle with that before puberty will work their way through it and realign their identity with their sex. But this law says that if any of those children go to a licensed professional and say: I would like help realigning my identity with my sex, that licensed professional has to decline to help them.... Moreover, if they're continuing down the path of transition, then, unfortunately, they get locked into that path, and, eventually, it leads, over 90 percent of the time, once they start down the path of social transition, it will lead to the route of medicalized transition, which the Cass report tells us comes with a lot of harm and devastation...."

From the oral argument in Chiles v. Salazar.

Note that 90% is used in 2 different contexts in that argument. 

"I’m not sure that winning the shutdown is a thing that matters. And I’m not sure that polling tells us very much about it."

Says the poll analyst Nate Silver — in "'Democrats Fumbled This a Bit’: 3 Writers Assess Where We Are With the Shutdown" (NYT) — making me assume the Democrats are losing ground in the polls.

Let's see:

"James Indictment Mirrors Her Civil Case Against Trump in Miniature."

NYT headline.

It's "miniature" because the alleged fraud is over a much smaller amount, $18,933 as opposed to "millions."

"War Breaks Out Over Trump Losing Nobel."

Meade texts.

Me: Did you write that?

Meade: Yes.

Me: That's Onion-level humor.

Meade: Thanks!

Me: It's not that big a compliment.

Meade: [Laughs very loud.]

"Some travelers will read this account and swear never to use Airbnb again, but my guess is many of those pledges will be short-lived."

"Short-term rentals are an irresistible part of the travel landscape these days, and it’s not like Airbnb’s competitors (or hotels, for that matter) are flawless, either.

From "Help! We Found a Hidden Camera in the Bathroom of Our Airbnb. When a couple alerted Airbnb to a spy cam in an outlet extender, they thought the listing would be yanked and they’d get a full refund. Wrong on both counts" (NYT).

What's to prevent anyone who wants a refund from bringing their own spy cam, plugging it into an outlet extender, then photographing it and complaining to the host?

"Joe Biden and Netanyahu were offered Gaza deal a year ago, says negotiator."

The London Times reports.

Gershon Baskin, the architect of the negotiations that freed the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, revealed on Thursday that Hamas had agreed the exact same terms of the deal in September 2024, in the last months of the Biden administration, but that Biden officials had disregarded it while Binyamin Netanyahu had refused point blank....

Baskin said members of the American negotiating team “were as frustrated as I was in their inability to convince Biden and Biden’s people to look seriously at the deal on the table”. In Doha, the Qataris said they could do nothing more “without the American adoption of the plan, nothing could be done, because the obstacle was Israel”.

The Biden administration had over a month to act before the election. After his party lost the election, Baskin supposedly learned that the Israelis wouldn't deal with Biden.

Painful baseball.

3 brutal mistakes on the same play

1. Fielding error
2. Deciding to go home instead of 1B
3. Wild throw

Just painful to watch

— Lupus (@LupusBeowulf) October 10, 2025

ADDED:

I just unsubscribed from Netflix — because we weren't watching it — but now....

This is the story of President James Garfield and his greatest admirer Charles Guiteau, the man who would come to kill him.

Michael Shannon, Matthew Macfadyen, Nick Offerman, Betty Gilpin, Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham star in Death By Lightning. Premiering November 6. pic.twitter.com/OGWlgbziaM

— Netflix (@netflix) October 9, 2025

It's titled "Death by Lightning," but it's based on a book titled "Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President" (commission earned). I've read that. By Candice Millard. Great! Nice to see Matthew Macfadyen — Tom Wambsgans from "Succession" — as the ridiculous, awful Charles Guiteau.

I'll turn Netflix back on for that. I originally subscribed to Netflix for one show — "The Crown." That's all it takes to rope me into a subscription. And I would not have unsubscribed if they hadn't dropped "Loudermilk."

"If your li'l girl comes home and said she was forced to undress in a locker room with a biological boy, what would you say? She's crying!"

I asked Abigail what if one of her girls came home crying because she was forced to undress next to a man.

Her silence speaks volumes. pic.twitter.com/FtkM6ir9KT

— Winsome Earle-Sears (@winwithwinsome) October 9, 2025

Why wasn't the Democrat, Abigail Spanberger, sharp enough to come up with something to say?

I asked Grok to write an answer for Spanberger and got: "I would hug my daughter tight, wipe away her tears, and tell her I love her no matter what. Then I'd explain that everyone deserves to feel safe and respected at school, including transgender kids who are just trying to be themselves. We'd work with the school to make sure there are options like private changing stalls for anyone who needs them, because protecting all our children means building a community where no one is left out or made to feel ashamed."

I was surprised by "I would... tell her I love her no matter what." I think that implies that the mother's first thought is, Oh, no, my daughter is transphobic!

ADDED: Here's the whole debate, and I'm pinpointing the beginning of the locker room talk:

Now, we can keep talking about it for another year.

Trump did not win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not Trump won.

Sunrise — 6:39, 7:08.

Write about whatever you want, use the Amazon portal if you like, and go Brewers.

Fetterman praises Trump: "We can have true peace in the region now."

"Who else has written anything like his 1999 novel War and War, in which a suicidal man determines to travel to New York and type out an ancient manuscript on the internet..."

"... before taking his own life? He is the sort of writer who attracts what Jorge Luis Borges, writing about James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, called 'terror-stricken praise.' So does his Nobel prize mean the committee is simply turning back in on itself, after a run of more approachable writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Annie Ernaux?... "

Writes John Self, in "Who is Laszlo Krasznahorkai, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature? Everything you need to know about this year’s winner and his apocalyptically gloomy novels" (London Times).

"His best-known novel is his debut, Satantango (1985), about a 'devil' figure who arrives in an apocalyptically dilapidated Hungarian village. It took me three goes to get through it but, even when I struggled, I admired the weird rhythms of its sentences... and its bolshy refusal to compromise on its bleak vision. If you can’t stomach the book, you could always try the film adaptation, although at almost seven and a half hours it is not much less gruelling...."

"Satantango"... I thought it said Santiago. But no, it's in Hungary. Satan Tango. 

"If the case is not put on hold, 'InfoWars will have been acquired by its ideological nemesis and destroyed,' Jones' lawyers wrote."

I'm reading "Alex Jones asks Supreme Court to block massive defamation judgment/Jones says the court must act immediately to prevent his site, InfoWars, where he has spread conspiracy theories, from being handed over to the satirical news site The Onion" (NBC News).

Didn't Jones successfully fend off The Onion already? "The Onion failed in a previous attempt to acquire InfoWars via a bankruptcy auction, but Jones' lawyer said a new attempt is underway in Texas state court."

Side question #1: Is it "underway" or "under way"? Here's a column on that highly refined subject:

Should have been 34D.

I'm reading Rex Parker's write-up of today's NYT crossword: 

35D: Annual breast cancer awareness observance (NO BRA DAY) — I did not know this was a thing, or still a thing. Seems like an impractical option for many women. According to wikipedia, "The day is controversial as some see it as sexualizing and exploiting women's bodies while at the same time belittling a serious disease." I misread the clue as [Annual breast cancer awareness month] and, having the "NO-," wrote in NOVEMBER (which fits ... it's wrong, but it fits). Breast Cancer Awareness Month is actually right now, October, and NO BRA DAY is next week (October 13).

I'd never heard of "No Bra Day" — I don't think — until I did today's NYT crossword. A search of the NYT archive shows it's only ever been used in the crossword. This annual "observance" — ahem — has never been spoken of in an actual article or column. It's not like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is talked up all the time.

I'd say it’s ridiculous to have a day where women are urged to invite people to focus on their undefended — unshielded, unsupported — breasts. Making breasts more gawkable does not create awareness of cancer. It creates awareness of breasts, especially healthy, good-looking breasts. But we don't want a special event for that, because it seems to legitimate staring. If the idea is to increase awareness of the comfort of not wearing a bra, it fails. The best bralessness happens when you believe no one notices, whether your belief is true or false.

Anyway, too bad the NYT made the clue 35D and not 34D or 36D. 35D almost sounds like a bra size.

"Untethered from reality."

I'm reading "Live Updates: Ninth Circuit Questions Why President Can’t Send National Guard Into Portland/A judge in Chicago is still hearing arguments on the Trump administration’s plans to send troops there. Both cases center on the legal limits of a president’s power to order troops into American cities against the will of state and local authorities" (NYT):

The federal case in Oregon turns, in part, on the amount of deference the courts must give to the president’s decisions about when and where to deploy the National Guard. The federal government is arguing that the courts cannot review those deployment decisions at all. Stacy Chaffin, who is representing Oregon before the appeals court, the Ninth Circuit, told the panel of judges on Thursday that the usual policy of deference did not apply if the president’s assessment of the situation in Portland was “untethered from reality.”

ADDED: It might seem crazy to have a legal test premised on connection to reality, but I think we are that crazy. The "rational basis" test is used all the time. It's important to see that the President is asking for even less scrutiny than that. He's arguing that his decision is unreviewable.

There's a lot of talk about Trump maybe getting the Peace Prize tomorrow, but he's so much in the middle of trying to pull off a deal in Gaza (not to mention Ukraine)...

... that it seems like the wrong time. Wait till next year. Or is there a good argument that it would be great to give it to him now?

That's my question. Discuss. Feel free to read how Grok answered it: here.

The Grok discussion begins with 2 other questions: 1. If the Nobel Committee gives its peace prize to someone who later starts an unjust war or does something else that's anti-peace, can it revoke the prize?, and 2. It only gives the prize to living persons, so how can it handle the problem of these persons going on to do bad things?

ADDED: Headline at Bloomberg: "Norway on Edge Over Trump Ahead of Nobel Peace Prize Verdict." Oh, Norway, get over yourself. 

UPDATE: "Nobody in history has solved 8 wars in a period of 9 months," said Trump, today, when invited to talk about his chance at tomorrow's Peace Prize.

"Many Democrats still cannot see how their legal aggression against Trump during his four years out of power set the stage for the dangerous revenge tour on which he is now embarked."

Writes the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, in "Jack Smith’s lawfare and James Comey’s arraignment on pathetically weak charges/Good people will be deterred from public service if they see a meaningful risk of winding up in jail afterward" (free-access link).

"Some Trump allies rationalize what’s happening by saying that they can escalate to deescalate — that is, respond to the legal attacks on Trump with wilder legal attacks on his enemies, thus deterring conflict in the future... Republicans are naïve if they’re confident they can deliver the final blow or that Trump can stop the cycle with blanket preemptive pardons come January 2029...."

"László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel prize in literature."

The Guardian reports.

Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai has been chosen as the winner “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

Blogger's new "Google Search" tool is annoying me.

I'm glad to see Google paying some attention to Blogger and adding a new feature, but I can't believe they put the icon in the compose window where it actually covers up some of the text while I'm trying to write. I don't even know if I just wrote "trying to" correctly! It looks like this from my point of view!

See the turquoise circle with the pencil icon. Please, Google, let me move that or make it disappear or move it up into the tool bar. Some of us still want to see what we're writing. 

What clicking that icon does is insert links all over the post. Like this:

It's not as though the link on "turquoise circle" goes anywhere interesting. And it gives the insane impression that readers might need help understanding the word combo or feel intrigued about exploring the concept. Who would want links like this? It seems like the stuff of fake blogs — spam. 

"When Cher went off the air on TV and started doing movies, I said, 'Oh God, I don't have to do anything like that again.'"

"And then all of a sudden, it all started coming back, because the children were looking on the internet and seeing pictures of people dressed like that, and all of us, we started getting phone calls. So I'm like, okay!... I love it."

Said Bob Mackie, quoted in "Bob Mackie on Taylor Swift, the Spectacle of the Showgirl, and Causing a Rhinestone Crisis/The legendary costumer tells Vanity Fair about the surprise of seeing his archival pieces on the cover of Swift’s newest album, and why showgirls are forever" (Vanity Fair).

Sunrise — 6:35, 7:05.

In the sunrise café, you can talk all night.

"After months of deadlock, Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a long-awaited breakthrough..."

"... that could point toward an end to the two-year war in Gaza. 'This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen,' Mr. Trump said on Truth Social."

The NYT reports.

"As she took the helm, [Bari] Weiss sent around a friendly-sounding note to the news staff that had one particularly notable line."

"Among her 'core journalistic values,' she wrote, is 'journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny.' Sounds good, but the two parties are far from equal these days. 'CBS should brace for a heavy dose of bothsiderism,' wrote Oliver Darcy in his Status newsletter, observing that the Free Press has, as its central thesis, 'that Trump and his supporters are largely right about the cultural rot of the woke-elite' and liberal overreach (wokeness) is a bigger problem than Trump’s existential threats to American democracy...."

Writes Margaret Sullivan, in "Bari Weiss is a weird and worrisome choice as top editor for CBS News/When Weiss was named editor-in-chief, it was the latest turn in the network’s confounding departure from its roots" (The Guardian).

Here's my post from yesterday reprinting Weiss's note with 10 principles of journalism. My only comment was "I particularly like #6."

#6 was "Journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny."

So what if "the two parties are far from equal these days"? When you hold unequal entities to equal scrutiny what you see is their inequality!

I think Margaret Sullivan has lost track of the meaning of equality. It doesn't mean reaching equal outcomes. It means applying the same standard. 

"The attack was heralded by... the mechanical buzz of a 'paramotor,' a motorised paraglider that can carry one or two armed soldiers strapped to a caged propeller and suspended beneath a parachute."

From "Myanmar junta ‘kills 40’ at village festival in paraglider bombing/The attack on protesters in the centre of the country, where a pro-democracy militia holds much territory, came during a Buddhist celebration" (London Times).

"I’ve lost 4 stone on Wegovy. Now I look like a weedy nerd."

Good headline... for a piece in the London Times by James Ball.

Excerpt: "Inevitably, someone who hasn’t seen me for a while will remark that I’ve lost weight, but people are much likelier to notice that I’m tall — as if somehow they’d missed that before. If you’re tall and fat, you look like you’re in proportion. Once you’re tall and (relatively) skinny, it becomes obvious you’re all arms and legs. I’m back to what I last weighed as a teenager, and some of that sense of awkward gangliness has returned...."

"You rely heavily on the history of regulating the medical profession. What's the history of regulating therapists? When did that begin?"

Asked Justice Thomas in yesterday's oral argument in Chiles v. Salazar. 

He was speaking to the lawyer defending a Colorado law that prohibited licensed therapists from delivering treatments aimed at changing a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity. 

The lawyer, Shannon W. Stevenson, responded with a surprisingly early date:

Mental health care and healthcare delivered through words were both well-established at the founding of this country. At that time, such practices were primarily carried out by physicians, whose work largely involved giving advice through words.

That's a far cry from the history of regulating therapists, but I'm intrigued by the idea of people in the late 18th century talking to their doctors about their mental difficulties. And when did the licensing of doctors begin? That is a much older idea, going back the middle ages. But I think licensing therapists is much more recent, and Stevenson quickly pivots to that:

"The medical consensus is usually reasonable and important. But have there been times when it has been politicized or influenced by ideology?"

Said Justice Alito in yesterday's oral argument in Chiles v. Salazar. He was confronting the lawyer defending Colorado's law prohibiting licensed therapy treatments aimed at changing a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity. The lawyer responds:

MS. STEVENSON: We have no facts about that in this case, but I wouldn’t disagree that it’s possible.

JUSTICE ALITO: Isn’t it a fact that it’s happened in the past?... “Three generations of idiots are enough”?

Those few quoted words invoke an infamous case, Buck v. Bell, where a state had seen fit to sterilize  a "feeble minded woman" without her consent. The Supreme Court did not object to the state's approach to medical science.

MS. STEVENSON: That’s certainly a concern. If there were evidence in the record that a standard of care wasn’t based on patient safety, that would be highly relevant.

Justice Alito didn't ask about whether the motive was correct — whether medical scientists were sincerely pursuing patient safety. He was concerned with whether the goal was pursued in a truly scientific manner and was not skewed by politics and ideology. 

JUSTICE ALITO: Isn’t that a reason to apply First Amendment scrutiny when what’s being regulated is pure speech, rather than just accepting the medical standard of care and medical consensus as the end of the matter, allowing rational basis review where anything goes?

The lawyer must resist this idea that the therapy is "pure speech." The idea she uses is that these are "words used to deliver medical treatment" (which are different from words expressing the opinion that conversion therapy is good (or bad)):

"Unfazed by rats..."

My son Chris reads books about Presidents and sends me the occasional snapshot. That's the latest.

AND: Who was Clover Adams? Wikipedia:

Clover, who has been cited as the inspiration for writer Henry James's Daisy Miller (1878) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881), was married to writer Henry Adams. After her suicide, he commissioned the famous Adams Memorial, which features an enigmatic androgynous bronze sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to stand at the site of her, and his, grave.

Not snobbish enough to refrain from suicide — or can suicide be snobbish?! In any case, what a grave —

"The authorities have punished two bloggers who advocated for a life of less work and less pressure; an influencer who said..."

"... that it made financial sense not to marry and have children; and a commentator known for bluntly observing that China still lags behind Western countries in terms of quality of life. These supposed cynics and skeptics, two of whom had tens of millions of followers, have had their accounts suspended or banned in recent weeks as China’s internet regulator conducts a new cleanup of Chinese social media.... 'In reality, we all experience fatigue and anxiety as a result of work and life, but these real emotions deserve respect and should not be deliberately amplified for traffic. The internet is not a dumping ground for negativity,' China’s state broadcaster CCTV said in an editorial about the campaign...."

From "Cheer Up, or Else: China Cracks Down on the Haters and Cynics/As China struggles with economic discontent, internet censors are silencing those who voice doubts about work, marriage, or simply sigh too loudly online" (NYT).

"[China's crackdown] demonstrates the concern among its leadership about the spread of malaise.... In recent years, some young people have opted out of the rat race in favor of a minimal life of 'lying flat' or given up on goals altogether and 'letting it rot.' The accounts of two bloggers known for promoting a minimal 'lying flat' lifestyle were blocked from adding followers late last month...."

Sunrise — 6:36, 7:03, 7:14.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"Overly online social media critics of Swift apparently instantaneously decided the new album is rife with racism and homophobia, as well as..."

"... secret messages of support for the patriarchy, eugenics, and Donald Trump. Forensic 'investigations' have uncovered 'dog-whistles,' but only woke detectives themselves are capable of hearing them. Either Swift is a covert alt-right influencer, or her young critics have been taught to see oppression everywhere, including where it quite clearly is not...."

Writes Rikki Schlott, in "Is Taylor Swift’s album really full of white supremacy and homophobia, or has everyone lost their minds?" (NY Post).

I don't really care, but I still felt engaged enough to listen to one of the songs, and isn't that the point? But how dumb it is to listen to songs and occupy your mind with the question whether the artist might be right wing. I'll just say what I said back in 2005: "To be a great artist is inherently right wing."

The song I listened to from the new album was "Cancelled!," which some listeners say is MAGA propaganda. Lyrics here, at Genius. Key words: "I like my friends cancelled.... At least you know exactly who your friends are/They're the ones with matching scars." Cancelled people make better friends. That could be a right-wing or a left-wing idea... at least if you get your left-wing ideas from half a century ago.

The problem isn't "too much gold." It's too much ornamentation.

What are all those stick-on doodads? They don't mean anything. They don't seem to be about America.

🚨 JUST IN: The White House has released new footage of the current Trump Oval Office and liberals are furious that there's "too much gold."

It actually looks stunning.

Trump's Oval looks leagues better than Biden and Obama's.pic.twitter.com/TtCZrl3Hur

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 7, 2025

"Bari Weiss outlines 10 principles that will guide her leadership of CBS News."

 Headline at Axios, with this list from Weiss's memo to CBS News staff:

1. Journalism that reports on the world as it actually is.
2. Journalism that is fair, fearless and factual.
3. Journalism that respects our audience enough to tell the truth plainly — wherever it leads.
4. Journalism that makes sense of a noisy, confusing world.
5. Journalism that explains things clearly, without pretension or jargon.
6. Journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny.
7. Journalism that embraces a wide spectrum of views and voices so that the audience can contend with the best arguments on all sides of a debate.
8. Journalism that rushes toward the most interesting and important stories, regardless of their unpopularity.
9. Journalism that uses all of the tools of the digital era.
10. Journalism that understands that the best way to serve America is to endeavor to present the public with the facts, first and foremost.

I particularly like #6.

The super harvest moon at dawn this morning — 6:57, 7:18.

"If you are a minor struggling with gender dysphoria, and you want to become comfortable with your body, the Colorado law won’t allow that."

"But there is an explicit exception in the law that allows a counselor to encourage a gender transition."

Said Jim Campbell, lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, quoted in "Supreme Court to hear arguments on Colorado ban of conversion therapy for minors" (WaPo). Oral argument is this morning.

The Supreme Court laid out a test for state laws regulating speech by medical professionals in a 2018 case. The government must show a compelling interest to impose content-based regulation on professional speech and must narrowly tailor any such law, the court ruled. Nevertheless, the high court found the government could regulate professional conduct that “incidentally” steps on free speech rights.... 

The state points to studies that show conversion therapy is ineffective and harmful.... What’s more, the state argues, if the Supreme Court embraces [the therapist's] free speech arguments, it could undermine professional standards and consumer protections....

There seems to be a weakness in the whole idea of the government licensing talk therapists. People can talk to each other about whatever they want, when there's no issue of the state giving the relationship a seal of approval. Once there is a system of designating some conversationalists "licensed therapists," it must consist of line-drawing about speech. 

And if Colorado gets away with its ban on conversion therapy, wouldn't that entitle some other state to ban affirming transgender identity?

UPDATED: I listened to most of the oral argument (which was available at the WaPo link). I'll have more to say when I get the transcript. 3 things I'll be looking for are: 1. Whether the state can take sides in what is really an ideological dispute, 2. Would the state's argument work in "mirror image" cases, where a state has adopted the other ideological side, and 3. Did the lawyer for Colorado really say that "talk therapy" was around at the time of the founding?

"During the 51 days I was held in this family’s home, I got to know the captors who were guarding me...."

"These men told me about their families and their jobs. One was a police officer with eight kids. Another ran a falafel stand. I can speak Arabic and could understand perfectly well when the terrorists discussed their ideology. One man was adamant that all the land belonged to Palestinians and that the Jews should leave for Morocco or Yemen. Another was more political, repeating endless Hamas dogmas about how there is no such thing as the State of Israel. But it was obvious that for some of them, joining up with Hamas was about economics, not just ideology. Hamas had money, power and status, and some joined to try and get those things for themselves. However, it became clear to me that the willingness to torture and murder comes from a deeper place. The murderers who broke into my house and slaughtered my wife and daughters were driven by blind hatred, which seemed to take precedence over all other motivations, including life itself...."

Writes Eli Sharabi, in "What my captivity taught me about Hamas and its hateful ideology/My captors’ cruelty revealed an obsession with death. Lasting peace will demand more than diplomacy" (WaPo). 

ADDED: Here's another column from Eli Sharabi, "I Was a Hostage in Gaza. This Is How I Survived" (Free Press):

"At the heart of Mr. Hegseth’s vision is an insistence that waging war is fundamentally different from other vocations in society because it is deadly and is meant to be."

"'This is life or death,' he said. 'As we all know, this is you versus an enemy hellbent on killing you.'... [T]he government’s duties to citizens who find themselves in harm’s way, fighting for their country, are not like its duties to citizens in other circumstances.... In a life-or-death occupational setting, there is no room for preferential treatment like affirmative action. No soldier should ever be led or covered by someone who has been promoted for reasons other than military effectiveness. That criterion is not bigoted. It arises from a reasonable philosophy of the limited mission of the military...."

Writes Christopher Caldwell, in "That Hegseth Speech Was Actually Pretty Good" (NYT).

Sunrise — 6:41, 7:00, 7:04, 7:16.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

And here's that Amazon link.

"In 1969, at the age of 38, just as she was gaining attention for her brawny, abstract paintings, she abandoned the form and initiated her 'General Strike Piece'..."

"... which involved a gradual withdrawal over a period of several months from the art world’s openings and social events, the first step in a long process of distancing herself from her peers.... In August 1971... she undertook another, even more audacious project, 'Decide to Boycott Women,' stating her intention to stop speaking to other women. In her notes on the piece, she suggested it would be temporary.... But it ended up being a practice she continued throughout the rest of her life, mostly, though not entirely, avoiding women (even allegedly once refusing to be helped by a female clerk at a grocery store). The blunt hostility of this piece struck many of her friends and, later, art critics and historians as an act of self-destruction.... 'Lee was very moody, drinking a lot of cheap wine and smoking lots of dope. I was raising my young son and had to ask her to leave after a few days. I remember thinking that she was a kind of warning about what could happen if you mixed art and life too closely.'... A picture of her last decades emerges only in shards and anecdotes. For several years she lived with her parents, until her father filed a restraining order and she was forced to move into her own apartment in the same complex.... She’s like a character in a Kafka story, or Melville’s Bartleby, but funnier, more perverted, more playful and an invention not of another writer’s mind but of her own...."

I'm reading "She Didn’t Speak to Other Women for 28 Years. What Did It Cost Her?/ When it came to using her life in her work, the artist Lee Lozano went about as far as a person can go" (NYT).

Back in the 1970s, one would often read about things like this. I'd thought the culture had lost interest in this sort of thing. I wonder what prompted the revival of interest — wanting to forefront a woman artist? But this woman made a lifelong project out of boycotting women. Are we supposed to believe she sacrificed something she wanted to be able to do?

Here's the comment NYT readers rate highest: "Refusing to speak to other woman is sexist and borderline sociopathic. It is most definitely not art, it's merely an eccentric and fairly selfish personality trait...." That's consistent with my observation that the culture has moved away from seeing weird acting out as art. It's a mental disorder... unless it has the honor of counting as an expression of "identity."

"Too many people moving at too many different speeds in too many directions."

"There are spandex-clad cyclists on road bikes who treat the loop like the Tour de France. There are fun-seeking teens testing how fast they can go on electric Citi Bikes. There are delivery workers pressing to fill orders. Some cyclists go the wrong direction. Some weave recklessly through the chaos. It is hardly the scene Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux could have envisioned when they designed the drives for leisurely rides in horse-drawn carriages, incorporating sharp curves to encourage low speeds...."

From "In Central Park, Pedestrians, Horses and E-Bikes Battle for Space/Critics say the park’s drives have become increasingly chaotic as e-bike riders move through at high speeds" (NYT).

I like how the wearing of spandex is treated as part of the problem. So much intolerance for self-expression. But obviously, bike riders are a hazard among the pedestrians, especially when the bikes have motors, and the twisty turns that might have slowed down horse-drawn carriages are enticing to take with speed when you're on a bike.

From the comments at the NYT:

Rainbow sunrise panorama.

This morning, from the shore of Lake Mendota.

"'One Battle After Another' is a movie that connects with the moment we’re in like nothing you’ve seen...."

"As the United States gets pushed, day by day, closer and closer to autocracy, that’s a situation that ought to be setting everyone in the country on edge. Yet it’s part of the nature of autocracy to narcotize people into numbness, delusion, fear, and a kind of self-perpetuating apathy.... 'One Battle After Another,' on the other hand, is a wildly entertaining, awesomely unpredictable screwball political thriller that on some level forces you to confront… the fate of our fucking country.... [I]t’s also the kind of galvanic and enveloping movie that imprints its themes onto your headspace.... The red-state demo has tended to shun films... which it views as liberal-left agit-prop, but I suspect that there’s something about the big vision of 'One Battle After Another' that could prove uniquely inviting.... The film depicts an underground band of revolutionary guerrillas, but instead of holding them up as shining heroes, it portrays them in shades of gray, spotlighting their naïveté and selfishness...."

Writes Owen Gleiberman, in "'One Battle After Another,' With Its Thriller Vision of Authoritarianism, Is the Rare Movie That Could Rule the Cultural Conversation/Paul Thomas Anderson's wild swing of a movie connects with the moment we’re in like nothing you’ve seen"
 (Variety).

And here's Ben Shapiro's view of the movie, from the right:

"The blizzard struck on Friday evening, coinciding with China’s eight-day National Day holiday, a peak season for hiking and tourism in the area."

"Trekkers had flocked to the Karma Valley, a high-altitude trail at over 4,900 metres (16,000 feet) that leads to the Kangshung Face, Everest’s eastern approach, making rescue efforts particularly challenging."

From "Blizzard traps nearly 1,000 hikers on slopes of Mount Everest/Rescue effort under way for trekkers stranded on mountain following sudden snowstorm" (The Telegraph).

I read this headline out loud to Meade whose response exemplified what human minds can do that A.I. will never do. He said that Hillary Clinton should get herself in shape and climb Mount Everest. I knew where that came from and said we need to write a political satire in which Hillary Clinton, returning to her "Politics of Meaning" roots, gets in touch with the spirit of Sir Edmund Hillary, her (supposed) namesake, and trains to climb Mount Everest.

Normally, I would give this post my "unwritten books" tag and move on, ever onward and upward, but I yielded to the temptation to prompt Grok to outline the book.

"A lecture from Pamela Anderson... about fascism and fireflies, that boomed around the uncompromisingly ugly black box..."

"... of a show venue, didn't add to the joy of the occasion. Nor did a finale that looked like a scene from Day of the Living Dead, with sad models drifting around the bleakly-lit space."

I'm perusing "Paris Fashion Week: Pamela Anderson sits front row at joyless Valentino show" (The Telegraph).

This model best exemplifies the mood. Look what fascism is doing to people!

Bones and silk, for that awkwardly bumpy look. 

Anyway, was the venue at the Valentino show "uncompromisingly ugly"? That's a judgment call. I really want to know the facts about what Pam said about "fascism and fireflies." I like alliteration. I envision an alphabet book — illustrated by A.I. — that has "fascism and fireflies" for F.

What can we do for the other letters? A is for anarchy and angel food cake....

But I end up using A.I. to figure out what Pam actually said, and — I'll cut the snark — it was quite eloquent.

A.I. powered "sombrero" memes are overflowing on X, and no one seems at all sensitive to the charge that they are racist.

I saw James Woods pushing this one:

Best yet… pic.twitter.com/Hrhr0MsZJh

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 5, 2025

Very extreme, perhaps maxxing out the trend. But no. There is much much more. Go to the replies to Woods's post and scroll. The sombrero-themed A.I. concoctions are endless.

Sunrise — 6:36, 7:06.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

And please do your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse portal — here. Thanks!

"Subway surfing, in which people ride atop or hang off the sides of fast-moving trains, has been around since the transit system’s earliest days more than a century ago."

"But it has grown more deadly in recent years, especially among teenagers inspired by sensational videos of the practice, city officials say.... City and state officials and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have ramped up efforts to dissuade young people from subway surfing. Since 2023, the police have used drones to catch subway surfers in the act. The M.T.A. has been working with social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok, to remove subway surfing footage...."

From "2 Girls Found Dead Atop a J Train in Suspected Subway Surfing Accident The teenagers, found unconscious on the roof of a train in Brooklyn, appear to be the latest casualties of a popular and deadly game" (NYT).

The New York subway system began in 1904, and I wondered about those early incidents. Here's a report in the NYT from May 16th of that year:

Forest sunrise, 7:10.

"The problem with it is, if you make the whole world run by fakes and simulations, everybody becomes increasingly more dysfunctional."

"Everybody becomes alienated and nervous and unsure of their own value, and the whole thing falls apart, and at some point, it’s like civilizational and species collapse."

Said Jaron Lanier, "a top scientist at Microsoft," quoted in Maureen Dowd's new column, "When A.I. Came for Hollywood" (NYT).

Dowd is taking on the Tilly Norwood problem. Do I have to explain that? Why do I have the creepy feeling that Al Gore is going to sidle over and smirk: "What about the Tilly Norwood problem?"

Just kidding. That's Dingell Norwood.

Tilly Norwood is just an all-A.I. actress. People might prefer a completely fake human to a mixed-up, fake-and-real, on-screen human. Why wouldn't we?

Here, watch the new episode of The Tim Dillon Show. Dillon talks about Tilly Norwood:

"The pope, who did not single out any country for its treatment of migrants, called on Catholics to 'open our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope.'"

Reuters reports.

"We’re not entirely sure what’s going on but it looks like possibly severe CIRS and a LOT of bad luck. Or we’re getting spiritually attacked. Or both...."

"To be perfectly honest, I think a lot of this is spiritual.... It's been one thing after another in an otherworldly type of way...."

Writes Jordan Peterson's daughter, Mikhaila, at X:

"I ask Pinker whether we are witnessing an anti-rationality backlash. He suggests..."

"... what we’re seeing is 'greater inequality in irrationality.' Sport has never been more rational: nowadays in America every team has a statistician. Also, 'there’s more evidence-based medicine' than before. But 'at the same time as that, irrationality has gotten absolutely entrenched at the highest levels of power in the United States.' He thinks the roots of the problem may be partly traced to 'the politicisation of science.' During Covid there were 'hundreds of public health experts saying that it’s OK to go out in Black Lives Matter protests' because 'the benefits of social justice outweigh the costs of spreading Covid.' They would not have said the same had it been 'say, a Maga rally.' He cites a number of similar examples, including an academic journal that promised to 'consult members of indigenous minority groups before deciding whether to accept scientific papers' and a science magazine that endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Such things 'erode the credibility of science.' He says: 'If science as an institution brands itself as on the political left, it should be prepared to alienate and maybe kiss off the American right.'"

From "Steven Pinker: I’m pinned between cancel culture and Trump/The Harvard psychologist talks to James Marriott about the campus ‘woke’ left and the Republican campaign to defund universities" (London Times).

"SNL" is back.

With lots of clips — the whole show? — at YouTube. 

I tried to pick one out for this post, but somehow I couldn't. Maybe you can. Bad Bunny was the host. The cold open was about that Pete Hegseth harangue.

The show has been around for 50 years, and I remember watching the first season, when the running joke was that they barely deserved to be on the air. It began like this:

I'm not the slightest bit uncomfortable about belonging there, with George, rather than here, with Bad.