Sunrise — 6:25, 6:30, 6:31, 6:39.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

At the Saturday Afternoon Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"And I did my little audition and they said can you do it more southern? And I'm like, are you shitting me?"

"It's like, you got to be shitting me. I said, well, what you have to understand is I actually did just get off the turnip truck from back there and this is how you talk.... And it was like, oh, I, I see what they're getting at. Yeah. So they wanted the Foghorn Leghorn — you know, now, ovah heah, what we have is — and... I grew up down there. I never heard that.... There are a lot of performances over the years where people who are not from the South played the part that actually used that accent. And they win Academy Awards and stuff. And I'm like, wow. So anyway, I didn't get this part. And the guy who got the part literally sounded like he was in the Bronx, but he was doing that thing, you know, I thought, wow, this is gonna be tough out here...."

Said Billy Bob Thornton, talking to Joe Rogan about the Southern accent.

Scroll back to 25:35 if you want to hear Joe link the Southern drawl to hookworm infection. I didn't think I'd hear Joe talking about "dewormers" again, but he does. 

"People like Trump and Putin are not politicians; they are artists who create alternate realities."

"They tell stories, invent alternative facts, enact daily dramas, construct show trials and reinvent religions — they build a world. In their world, the people who felt humiliated are now dominant and doing the humiliating. Russia felt humiliated by the West in the 1990s. Many working-class American voters have felt humiliated by coastal elites for decades. In this alternative world, the snobs suffer. People support an authoritarian not because they like this or that policy but because they embrace the authoritarian’s artistic vision. Performance artists like Trump and Putin can be dishonest, offensive and outrageous, but there is one rule: They must never be boring."

Writes David Brooks, in "Imagining What’s in Trump’s Brain" (NYT)(gift link).

I'm expending one of my gift links on this one because this snippet, taken out of context, gives rise to the question Are artists authoritarians?

Brooks is "imagining what's in Trump's brain" and we're stuck with the added task of imagining what's in Brooks's brain when he's imagining what's in Trump's brain. Trump is an artist because he's imagining — conjuring up an "alternative world" that is satisfying to the downtrodden. But don't all politicians depict the world in a somewhat abstract and fictional framework? They impose a narrative. They choose which facts to highlight, while their opponents select other facts from the big bag of "facts." The "coastal elites," the "snobs," have their creative narratives too... and this David Brooks column is one of them.

Quite apart from Trump and Brooks, I am fascinated by the question Are artists authoritarians? I am reminded of something I blogged 20 years ago: "To be a great artist is inherently right wing."

"Asked why the park was in the desert kingdom, where free speech is curtailed by the regime and homosexuality is a capital offence, [Mr. Beast] said..."

"... most of his fans were outside the United States. 'Middle of the world because a majority of my audience is outside America and we have a big Middle Eastern fanbase,' he wrote on X. 'Wanted to give them a chance to participate!'"

From "World’s biggest YouTuber MrBeast unveils theme park in Saudi Arabia/Jimmy Donaldson, who is known for controversial stunts involving eye-popping prizes, says Beast Land will not be a 'typical theme park'" (London Times).

1. How can any point on the face of a globe be considered the "middle"? It could be the middle of the land mass, but Saudi Arabia isn't that. It's somewhere in Turkey/Iran.  It could be the middle of the population mass, but that would be somewhere in northern India or southern China.

2. The U.S. is the biggest slice of Mr. Beast's audience — 25–30% — but it's true that the majority is outside of the U.S. and the Middle East as a whole is a big chunk — 20–25%. I'm also seeing that Saudi Arabia, of all the countries in the world, has the largest percentage of the population using YouTube — 95.8%.

3. One must infer that the real attraction for Mr. Beast is the money — combined with some idea of "reaching" the people through the absurd infusion of American popular culture? A better question is why the Saudis want this stuff on their land? For tourism? Isn't their tourism better if they keep everything traditional and historical?

4. There is some argument that Mr. Beast is genuinely intrigued by the idea of making a new kind of theme park. Imagine going to Saudi Arabia to break loose from the shackles of theme park conventions. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson empowers Trump to continue withholding food money.

The NYT reports: "Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Trump to Curtail Food Stamp Funding/The temporary ruling by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, blocking a lower court order to fully fund the aid, added to the uncertainty around the nation’s largest anti-hunger program."

See? It's not all about empathy.

Justice Jackson, a member of the court’s three-justice liberal bloc who has spoken forcefully against many of the Trump administration’s policies, issued a decision on the stay because she is responsible for emergency applications from that region of the country. She said in the order that she expected the appeals court to evaluate the matter and issue a more complete ruling swiftly.

Still, many Democrats around the country erupted in anger on Friday night, with some accusing President Trump of trying to turn nutrition assistance — a program on which one in eight Americans rely — into a bargaining chip while the government remains closed.

“Trump fought for this,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, said in a post on social media. “He doesn’t care if millions of Americans go hungry.”

Did Hochul say that before or after Jackson showed she "doesn't care"?

Sunrise — 6:34, 6:40, 6:44.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

David Hajdu, reviewing Patti Smith's new memoir, sounds cranky about people who write too many memoirs.

"How many memoirs can a richly lived life fill? Eleanor Roosevelt published four autobiographies. Shirley MacLaine has written at least five so far. Charles Lindbergh published six autobiographical books, though only 'The Spirit of St. Louis' won a Pulitzer Prize. Maya Angelou wrote six or seven, depending on how you categorize the writing. Now, with 'Bread of Angels' [commission earned], Patti Smith has matched Angelou in one of the few things the two poets have in common, with more than six books of autobiographical prose and prose poetry.... [Smith] could have spun the contents of 'Bread of Angels' into at least three separate books and surpassed Angelou numerically...."

I'm reading "Taking Stock: Patti Smith Looks Back on Everything/From cradle to late life, the godmother of punk remembers it all — including, especially, her life with the late Fred 'Sonic' Smith" (NYT).

If memoir is your genre, you write memoirs. It doesn't matter how eventful or "richly lived" your life is. You rustle up your material — whatever material is still lying around raw — and you make it happen. 

But I think Hajdu does seem to like the book: "Now we know that what Patti and Fred Smith did was set up housekeeping in a stone house on a mucky canal, where she wrote on a little card table... Working at her card table, assessing and adjusting her priorities, she came to see herself mainly as a writer.... A core theme of 'Bread of Angels,' then, is how its author became someone who would write something like 'Bread of Angels.'..."

Elise Stenfanik — announcing her run for NY Governor — uses Zoran Mamdani's word: "affordability."

"There's no question New York is facing an affordability crisis.... Kathy Hochul made New York the most unaffordable state in the nation, crushing families with sky-high taxes, unaffordable rent, soaring energy costs, and record high grocery bills and cozied up through a defund the police, tax hiking anti-semitic communist.... Elise Stefanik will make New York affordable and safe.... We are the most unaffordable state in the nation because of single party Democrat rule led by Kathy Hochul. As a working mom, congresswoman, and fighter, Elise knows families need more help, and she'll make New York affordable.... With everything on the line, we need someone who will deliver results and make New York affordable and safe for families and small businesses to not just survive, but thrive...."

So Mamdani just got elected on the promise of making NYC affordable, and he needs to work with Hochul if he is to get anywhere toward fulfillment of the promise, and Hochul has Stefanik hot on her heels, so Hochul is powerfully motivated to help progress toward this affordability in the coming year, running up to the 2026 election. Hochul must act. Stefanik will say she's doing it all wrong, and with Mamdani — "the communist" — as her partner in affordability-seeking, she probably will be. 

"In 2022, a group of union members asked the Sierra Club to 'follow [its] values of antiracism and justice' and cancel sightseeing trips it operated in Israel...."

"'Palestine is an environmental issue from our standpoint,' Erica Dodt, the president of the Progressive Workers’ Union, which includes Sierra Club employees, said in an interview. 'People are a huge part of our environment.'... Internally, the club’s commitment to a progressive workplace curdled into a culture of allegations and investigations.... Delia Malone, an ecologist and volunteer for the club’s Colorado chapter, said she heard from attorneys hired by the Sierra Club, seeking to interview her as part of an investigation against her. 'I said, "What’s the claim, and who made the claim?" And they said, "We can’t tell you that,"' Ms. Malone said. Ms. Malone thought that someone else in the chapter had filed a complaint. She recalled an incident when a club staff member had scolded her for saying that the club should lobby Colorado’s legislature for more protections for wolves. 'One of the staff said, "That’s fine, Delia. But what do wolves have to do with equity, justice and inclusion?"' Ms. Malone said...."

From "The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart. The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration" (NYT).

"Nancy Pelosi, the old and broken political hack who Impeached me twice and lost, is finally calling it 'quits.'"

"She illegally made a fortune in the Stock Market, ripped off the American Public, and was a disaster for America. I’m glad to see the stench of Nancy Pelosi go!!!"

Wrote Trump, about Pelosi, an hour ago, at Truth Social.

I like how he didn't put anything sexist in there.

The moon at 6:34 this morning.

"[T]he character of Mr. Obama, played by T.J. Wilkins, is the near-perfect embodiment of the American ideal — a noble, caring patriot who could catch a beat."

"(The only character more perfect, it goes without saying, is Michelle.) Part revival meeting, part endangered species preserve for normie Democrats who can afford theater tickets, by the end, the show prompted audience members to put their hands in the air. I was less ecstatic...."

Writes David Litt about a "Hamilton"-like theater production about Obama, in "The New Obama Musical Made Me Feel Old" (NYT).

As the headline suggests, Litt, a former speechwriter for Obama, goes on and on about himself, which makes me assume the play isn't much of a play. It's no "Hamilton"... and it actually begins with an announcement "This is not 'Hamilton.'" The name of the new musical is "44: The Musical."

I was a bit taken aback by "a noble, caring patriot who could catch a beat." I think "could catch a beat" means about the same thing as "had rhythm." That's a stereotype about black people that sophisticated people learned to stop vocalizing back in the 1970s.

Litt continues: "While I’m not proud to admit it, watching Mr. Obama receive the cherry-tree treatment awakened my inner curmudgeon.... 'This was so much more difficult than you make it look!' I inwardly grumped...." I'm not sure what "cherry-tree treatment" is supposed to mean. Treated like a legendary hero (George Washington)? That would make me grumpy too... except it wouldn't because I can see from a thousand miles away this show is not for me. It's hard to understand Litt, a person who would go to this show but is nevertheless displeased.

"As for the Government’s suggestion that the President is harmed by not being able to impose a uniform definition of sex across various regulatory schemes..."

"... that assertion is just another species of the far-fetched contention that the President must be injured whenever he is prevented from doing as he wishes.... The Government also fails to explain why it needs a uniform definition of sex, much less why such a uniform definition needs to be imposed now such that it cannot await the outcome of this litigation...."

Writes Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — joined by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor — dissenting in Trump v. Orr, which granted a stay of a district court’s preliminary injunction against a new Executive Branch policy that required all new passports to show the individual's "biological sex" (AKA "sex assigned at birth").

"When I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear."

NEW: Sydney Sweeney refuses to apologize for the American Eagle jeans ad after GQ's Katherine Stoeffel continuously tried to get her to cave.

Stoeffel: I mean, Trump tweeted about the jeans ad ... that just seems like a very crazy moment...

Sweeney: It was surreal.

Stoeffel:… pic.twitter.com/F9ihaeMqeq

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 6, 2025

For the Annals of Unsaid Things.

Sunrise — 6:18, 6:32, 6:45.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"The straitlaced court proceedings seemed to crack at times as lawyers played video of Dunn bobbing up and down, hurling expletives at a group of law enforcement officers patrolling a popular nightlife area..."

"... at 14th and U Streets NW, as a bystander chuckled at the scene and offered running commentary. ('No, Superman!') Jurors also saw video of the sandwich being thrown, the short-lived foot chase that followed and Dunn’s statements after the arrest: 'I did it. I threw a sandwich. I did it to draw them away from where they were. I succeeded.'... Defense attorney Sabrina Shroff... displayed a photo of the wrapped sandwich on the ground and pressed the agent to clarify whether it had really exploded. Lairmore said... 'I had mustard and condiments on my uniform, and an onion hanging from my radio antenna that night,' the agent said. During closing arguments Wednesday, Shroff questioned whether [the officer] really felt threatened, noting that his co-workers gave him a plush toy sandwich as a gag gift, which he displayed on his office shelf, and an insignia that he affixed on his lunchbox, showing a likeness of Dunn hoisting a hoagie above the words 'Felony Footlong.'"

From "Jury finds D.C. ‘sandwich guy’ not guilty of assaulting officer.Sean C. Dunn admitted he flung the hoagie at a federal agent. His attorneys called it a 'harmless gesture' of protest as Trump commandeered D.C. police" (WaPo).

"You hear that language of personal choice, not only on the left with regard to abortion, but for conservatives in opposition to things like SNAP benefits for unmarried women..."

"Well, you chose to have this baby while you were poor, and everyone knows you could have chosen differently — when that could entail not having sex or killing the baby in the womb after sex has been had. So there is this sense that the base-line person does not have someone to depend on in this way. I think pregnancy is the starkest example, and it’s the gendered example, but the sense that the fundamental nature of the human person is someone who isn’t constrained by someone else’s need isn’t just a problem for women — it’s a problem for all of us. Each of us has people who depend on us, even if we go through our whole lives childless...."

Said Leah Libresco Sargeant, in an interview in the NYT with the provocative title "Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace? And if so, can conservative feminism fix it?" That's a free-access link to the transcript of the new episode of Ross Douthat's podcast. Also in the interview is Helen Andrews. As Douthat puts it, the guests are "both conservative writers, both critics of feminism, but they have very different views of what a right-wing politics of gender should look like."

Moonset — 6:22.

The moon had a way to go. It did not set until 9:39 — more than 3 hours after these photos. You're seeing the moon at 97.9% illumination — a waning gibbous moon.

The gerontocracy crumbles.

Now that Election Day is over, it's time for that sort of thing. More, please.

"After hearing all of you talk about this, I'm even less sure of how this case will come out than I went in."

"I felt far more confident before I heard the oral arguments. I felt less confident, but still, you know, I was where I was going into this conversation and now I'm leaving, throwing my hands in the air. I do think, however, in that big picture part that when you think about Chevron doctrine... that the executive branch agencies are going to have less power to define their own scope of power.... And at the same time, I think they will give the President more power over his personnel that you don't want sort of complete vertical power in an executive branch that then also has a lot of horizontal power to get extra legislative power.... So, Mr. President, you have complete control of your executive branch and also we've taken away some of the powers of the executive branch — I think would be the best outcome of this term...."

Said Sarah Isgur at the end of the Advisory Opinions podcast yesterday, summing up after moderating a high-quality conversation about the oral argument in the tariffs case.

"What did you think of that Supreme Court oral argument?"/"I'm enjoying learning about the parts of speech."

That's a snippet of phone conversation between Meade and me — my question, his answer — as we'd been listening separately, through headphones, as we were walking toward our meeting spot in the lakeshore woods. 

From the concordance to the transcript of the argument in Learning Center v. Trump:

noun [5] 16:19 52:3,25 53:

20 85:22 ...

verb [9] 11:25 16:10 40:8 

52:3,11 53:20 100:13 135:

4 176:21

verbs [29]11:25 12:2,7 16:

19 28:16 29:3,16,22 30:2

Context: 

GENERAL SAUER: Dames & Moore... said, this particular provision, where Congress has given these broad verbs, I mean, "regulate" is a capacious verb, admittedly, so are "nullify," so are "void," so are, frankly, all the other verbs there in the -- the language in IEEPA. 

"I used to get real high."

Braves banned Freddie from doing the worm one year after they drafted him 💀 pic.twitter.com/gN4tiEiGPK https://t.co/q4HsBbv73R

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) November 6, 2025

"Annie Hall" reference in the Supreme Court oral argument yesterday.

Link.

"Ninety-nine percent of people [back then] didn’t have their portrait painted. It does not mean they did not exist."

"They are central to the drama of the American Revolution. It might be a teenager: John Greenwood from Boston, or Joseph Plumb Martin from Connecticut. Or 10-year-old Betsy Ambler [from Yorktown] or the Native Americans or Spanish or French or Hessian soldiers. At the end, we say the Continental Army is just filled with teenagers and ne’er-do-wells, second and third sons who aren’t due an inheritance, felons, and recent immigrants. That’s who wins the war, and that’s why democracy is not an object of the revolution, it’s a consequence—because you realize at the end, they did the fighting and dying. We’re going to have to give them something. John Greenwood is a footnote? Betsy Ambler is a footnote? Follow the trail. And when you get Maya Hawke reading Betsy Ambler, it comes alive."

Says Ken Burns, in a Vanity Fair interview. He's talking about his new PBS documentary, "The American Revolution," and Vanity Fair makes its headline spicier than the quote: "Ken Burns Knows Who Won the American Revolution: 'Ne’er-Do-Wells, Felons, and Immigrants.'"

Is VF making the show more about present-day politics than it deserves or is the show pushing a political agenda? I have a feeling Burns does very restrained interviews — in line with the PBS presentation of itself. So maybe the VF headline is helpfully apt. Rereading that Burns quote, I find it plainly political.

I cringe at the sentiment "when you get Maya Hawke reading Betsy Ambler, it comes alive." Hand me a history book and spare me the lively readings of nepo-babies.

I believe I've only ever watched one of Burns's shows, the first one: "Brooklyn Bridge," from back in 1981. I've actively avoided them. And I love documentary film.

By the way, of all the American wars, did the Revolutionary War have the highest percentage of teenagers doing the fighting?

Sunrise — 6:10, 6:22, 6:27, 6:32.

Funny how suddenly the red dropped out, but it's something I've seen many times. The last picture is still 6 minutes before the official sunrise time, and probably 9 minutes before the orb popped. All the excitement was early, but early isn't all that early this time of year. I was up before 2 (or 3 as it would be called if we were still doing DST). 

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Moonset with full moon.

We were approaching moonset at 6:26 this morning.

Actual moonset time was not until 8:18. Sunrise was 6:38.

Listen to the live Supreme Court argument in the tariffs case.

 Here, now.

"Mr. Mamdani later told an ally that he had confided in his fiancée, Rama Duwaji, that he didn’t really think he could win."

"The goal was to build a template for the kind of muscular leftist campaign that might one day crack the Democratic establishment’s hold. How that long-shot candidacy caught fire has been amply dissected by political observers here and in Washington. Mr. Mamdani foregrounded the city’s affordability crisis when rivals focused elsewhere, lapped them with viral social media videos and benefited from Democrats’ hunger for generational change.... Forget the New York conjured by political strategists, one future adviser, Zara Rahim, advised him over coffee last summer. Make a campaign about the actual New York City.... The campaign... hosted a series of events — a citywide scavenger hunt, a soccer tournament at Coney Island — that opponents laughed off as gimmicks but attracted thousands of supporters. Many later became part of an unmatched army of volunteers...."

Writes Nicholas Fandos, in "How Zohran Mamdani Beat Back New York’s Elite and Was Elected Mayor/The 34-year-old assemblyman won the Democratic primary by defying the city’s all-powerful establishment. He secured the mayoralty by delicately disarming it" (NYT).

People say Mamdani has never run anything, but remember when Obama was first running for President and they said that about him. Remember his answer? He's run something: He's run the campaign! Memorably hilarious. But wait a minute. Did Obama say that? I've spent the last hour looking for the quote. I've even found multiple examples of it, using 2 different AIs, which were quick to provide long quotes, quotes that didn't exist in the transcripts of the events that were named. My hypothesis at this point is that it's a false memory — an example of the Mandela effect. Obama may have said something that his opponents paraphrased into an argument that felt ludicrous, but he never made the argument that to run your political campaign for an executive position is relevant executive experience.

Anyway, good luck to Zohran Mamdani. He ran a fantastically successful campaign. One must hope he will also be successful running New York City.

"For reasons I don’t need to go into, you may feel that now is a bad time to visit the once United States. I thought the same..."

"... but having just returned from a tour of Arizona, I’d argue that it’s the perfect time. What Barack Obama described as 'an inflection point' is America’s worst domestic crisis since the civil rights movement of the 1960s: the relationship problems of a democracy still a few months short of its 250th birthday. For curious travellers and for those who prefer to make up their minds based on what they’ve seen rather than what they’ve been told, now offers the opportunity to witness not only history in the making but the events that brought America to where it stands today. Arizona is the place to start. Everywhere is open, everyone is delighted to see you...."

I'm reading, in The London Times, "My week taking America’s temperature in the Grand Canyon state/The history is fascinating and the scenery is astonishing but is the welcome as warm as it used to be? Chris Haslam finds out on a slow drive through Arizona."

Sample text:

"I don’t believe the White House is involved in that planning … flags have been lowered to half-staff in accordance with statutory law."

Said Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt, quoted in "Dick Cheney, former US vice-president, dies aged 84," teased on the front page of the London Times as "Trump pays no tribute to Dick Cheney after his death."

The Times helpfully notes "US law mandates half-mast for ten days following the death of a vice-president," rubbing it in that Trump is shutting up about Cheney.

Some other headlines: "Karoline Leavitt Dishes Out Ice-Cold Answer on the Death of Dick Cheney" (Mediaite), "Trump White House snubs ex-VP Dick Cheney, offers no condolences on his death" (NY Post), "Dick Cheney’s Death Met With Stone-Cold Reaction From White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as Donald Trump Stays Mum on the News" (Radar News).

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"I could feel it through my ballistic vest. It kind of exploded all over. You could smell the onions and the mustard."

Testified CBP Agent Gregory Lairmore, quoted in "Border Patrol agent recalls moment DC sandwich slinger’s sub 'exploded all over; him: ‘You could smell the onions'" (NY Post).

The lawyer for Sean Charles Dunn, on trial for assault, appealed to the jurors' sense of proportion: "It was a harmless gesture at the end of him exercising his right to speak out... He did it. He threw the sandwich. And now the US Attorney for the District of Columbia has turned that moment — a thrown sandwich — into a criminal case, a federal criminal case charging a federal offense."

This makes me think of the old saying "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins." In this case, it's not a swung fist but a flung sandwich, but there's definitely a nose, a nose offended by the stench of onions and mustard. 

"'Shame on Sliwa! Shame on Sliwa!' dozens of people at the front of the room jeered, apparently blaming Sliwa, a Republican, for Cuomo’s loss."

"At the bar, one man told his friend it was 'embarrassing.'... With people clearly losing interest, campaign staff sprang into action. They hurried the remaining crowd to the front of the stage.... Cuomo immediately tried to cast his loss as a success, telling the crowd: 'This campaign was to contest the philosophies that are shaping the Democratic party, the future of this city and the future of this country.' He said tha[t] 50% of New Yorkers had not voted for Mamdani’s agenda...."

I'm reading "Nobody likes a sore loser – but Cuomo declines to bow out gracefully/Despondency reigned at the Ziegfeld Ballroom – and then the defeated candidate found it hard to praise the victor" (The Guardian).

Cuomo was a terrible candidate. He should take responsibility for that. New Yorkers had an array of clowns and picked the one with the smiley face.

AND: "Only a uniquely hated politician with his connections and campaign coffers could bungle an election versus a political unknown this badly. Whether it was his bare-bones daily schedules that spent more time with donors than voters or his desperate flip-flopping on issues like closing Rikers Island during the campaign, Cuomo proved one thing to be true: the only thing he has ever believed in is his own ambition" — from "Andrew Cuomo’s embarrassing loss to Zohran Mamdani in NYC mayoral election ends Cuomo family political dynasty" (NY Post).

Sunrise — 6:07, 6:36, 6:37, 6:43.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

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

"A Romanian worker died late on Monday after being trapped for 12 hours when the 13th-century Torre dei Conti, overlooking the ancient Forum, caved in..."

"... sending a cloud of dust and debris over tourists. Maria Zakharova, a Kremlin spokeswoman, claimed that Italian infrastructure was crumbling because funds were being diverted to backing Ukraine’s war effort. 'As long as the Italian government keeps uselessly wasting taxpayers’ money, all of Italy will collapse, from the economy to its towers,' she said on Monday on her Telegram channel...."

From "Russia blames fatal Rome tower collapse on support for Ukraine/Italy is outraged as the Kremlin links its military aid to the death of a maintenance worker in the Torre dei Conti" (London Times).

Wow, that's some cheap trolling from the Kremlin spokeslady.

"What about the recent theft from the Louvre, the 2,000 items stolen from the British Museum last year, or environmental activists pouring oil on Egyptian artefacts in Germany?"

Said Monica Hanna, dean of Egypt’s Arab Academy for Science and Technology, addressing the argument that "Western museums" offer better security.

Quoted in "Now give us back Rosetta Stone and other treasures, Egyptians demand/Campaigners say the Grand Egyptian Museum opening strengthens the country’s moves to have ancient looted artefacts returned" (London Times).

What's up with the British spelling "artefact"? The Latin root is "artēfactum," just combines "skill" and "thing" to mean "thing made," and the French word was "artefact." The American spelling — "artifact" — reflects the thinking of Noah Webster, who scorned spelling based on etymology and foreign languages — especially French.

As for the Rosetta Stone: Make 10 replicas and place them in 10 museums, including the British Museum and the Grand Egyptian Museum, and hide the real thing in a vault somewhere.

"'What I understood was that at some point I wanted to show up publicly with my hair fully as it comes out of my head,' she said."

"For her, that meant braids. 'It was just a question of when.'... Her hair was pressed during our interview, draping over her shoulders with a middle part and styled in loose curls. She said that choice was left to her hair and beauty team.... In 'The Look,' Mrs. Obama suggests that Black women’s personal style is often pulled in two directions: toward 'respectability' or toward authenticity.... 'We didn’t feel like we had the leeway to show up in the world as our full selves,' she said. 'I was a corporate lawyer before I was first lady: No one who was a woman of color was wearing braids or their hair naturally. Our mothers didn’t do that.'..."

From "Michelle Obama on the Restrictive Beauty Standards of Being First Lady/In a new book, Mrs. Obama unpacks the complexities of dressing and hairstyling during her eight years at the height of American politics" (NYT).

But Michelle Obama had tremendous support in the press, including support for whatever she chose to do with her hair, makeup, or clothing. She could have led the way in any direction. If she wanted to popularize natural hairstyles, she should have done it. She could do it now, but she interviews with the Times with her hair "pressed... draping over her shoulders... and styled in loose curls." She was "pulled in two directions: toward 'respectability' or toward authenticity"? Who is pulling her? She is monumentally empowered. 

"As vice presidents go, Mr. Cheney was a singular figure: more powerful and less ambitious for higher office than any vice president in modern times...."

"In many ways an inscrutable personality, he had no patience for small talk, almost never spoke about himself and rarely gave interviews or held news conferences, although he sometimes went on television to promote administration policies and was often in the news. He preferred the backstage to the spotlight. A consummate Washington insider, Mr. Cheney was an architect and executor of President Bush’s major initiatives: deploying military power to advance the cause of democracy abroad, championing tax cuts and a robust economy at home, and strengthening the powers of a presidency that, as both men saw it, had been unjustifiably restrained by Congress and the courts in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. As Mr. Bush’s most trusted and valued counselor, Mr. Cheney foraged at will over fields of international and domestic policy. Like a super-cabinet official with an unlimited portfolio, he used his authority to make the case for war, propose or kill legislation, recommend Supreme Court candidates, tip the balance for a tax cut, promote the interests of allies and parry opponents...."

From "Dick Cheney, Powerful Vice President and Washington Insider, Dies at 84/A former defense secretary and congressman, he held the nation’s No. 2 job under President George W. Bush and was an architect of policies in an era of war and economic change" (NYT)(free-access link, because this is a very long and fact-heavy obituary).

A western view of today's sunrise.

2 views of the trees at sunrise — 23 minutes apart.

"The BBC 'doctored' a Donald Trump speech by making him appear to encourage the Capitol Hill riot..."

"... according to an internal whistleblowing memo seen by The Telegraph. A Panorama programme, broadcast a week before the US election, 'completely misled' viewers by showing the president telling supporters he was going to walk to the Capitol with them to 'fight like hell,' when in fact he said he would walk with them 'to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

A Telegraph TikTok, below the fold (or read the Telegraph article: "BBC ‘doctored’ Trump speech, internal report reveals"):

Unless they nuke the filibuster, "it will be impossible for Republicans to get Common Sense Policies done." The "Crazed Democrat Lunatics" will "block everything."

"FOR THREE YEARS, NOTHING WILL BE PASSED, AND REPUBLICANS WILL BE BLAMED. Elections, including the Midterms, will be rightfully brutal. If we do terminate the Filibuster, we will get EVERYTHING approved, like no Congress in History. We will have FAIR, FREE, and SAFE Elections, No Men in Women’s Sports or Transgender for Everybody, Strong Borders, Major Tax and Energy Cuts, and will secure our Second Amendment, which the Democrats will also terminate, IMMEDIATELY."

Wrote Trump, on Truth Social this Morning.

He's all about winning: "[The Democrats] have much less chance of WINNING if we have Great Policy Wins after Wins after Wins. IN FACT, THEY WILL LOSE BIG, AND FOR A VERY LONG TIME. TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER NOW, END THE RIDICULOUS SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATELY, AND THEN, MOST IMPORTANTLY, PASS EVERY WONDERFUL REPUBLICAN POLICY THAT WE HAVE DREAMT OF, FOR YEARS, BUT NEVER GOTTEN. WE WILL BE THE PARTY THAT CANNOT BE BEATEN - THE SMART PARTY!!!"

"There were forty-three runaways, part of a troop of roughly fifty.... All were rhesus macaques, a species known for its deep communal bonds and larkish intelligence...."

"'Macaques are the marines of monkeys, because they never leave a man behind,' Lisa Jones-Engel, a primatologist and senior science adviser at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (peta), told me. 'They could have followed the woods and ended up in a rhesus nirvana. What kills me is they were crying for their friends and daughters to come with them.'... Groups that oppose animal testing, historically the province of liberals and progressives, were in the process of forging a delicate alliance with the incoming Trump Administration. An estimated third of the forty-eight-billion-dollar budget of the N.I.H. goes toward funding animal research—and animal protectionists, Make America Healthy Again adherents, and anti-establishment libertarians were realizing that they shared a desire to see that budget slashed...."

From "The Runaway Monkeys Upending the Animal-Rights Movement/A troop of macaques escaped one of the largest primate-breeding facilities in America. Now a strange coalition of uncompromising activists and maga loyalists is demanding that all lab animals be set free" (The New Yorker).

Today's sunrise — photographed at 5:59 — and a look back to yesterday.

Today, it was quite clear and most interesting 36 minutes before the orb popped:

So let me go back to yesterday, that very misty morning. I have a few more pictures I wanted to show you. I caught this odd looks-out-of-focus image 9 minutes after the official pop:

"I've got people in my family that are to the right of Attila the Hun. And when people tell me, like, 'How can you platform that person on your show?'..."

"I go, I platform my uncle every Thanksgiving. And by the way, I love him. He's a three-dimensional human being who has qualities that I really admire, things about him. And we've lost that. We've lost the ability to love people, because we litmus test at every point."

Said John Stewart.

For a contrasting opinion, here's Ben Shapiro savaging Tucker Carlson for platforming Nick Fuentes:

"I caused so much trouble yesterday. But it worked out."

Said Scott Adams on his live show this morning.

Coffee With Scott Adams 11/3/25 https://t.co/Vie6dMg9Dw

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 3, 2025

On his X feed:

Best President ever.

Thank you, President Trump.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 3, 2025

That follows this, yesterday:

"60 Minutes," wisely, makes the extended version of its interview with Trump available on YouTube.

Who would want to watch the edited version... other than to launch an investigation of the editing process? Presumably, it was a condition of Trump's participation that the unedited version would need to be posted. Also, "60 Minutes" is now under the watchful eye of Bari Weiss. That should make Trump more trustful and perhaps he wants to help Weiss succeed... if she plays the game his way and helps him succeed... which may consist merely of playing it fair.

I've listened to part of this interview, and I did notice that O'Donnell was interrupting Trump with repeated little jabs early on in his answers. I do not think O'Donnell would do that to, say, Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, even though Biden and Harris are far more likely to babble nonresponsively and run out the clock. But Trump is great at taking whatever energy is thrown his way and turning it into something that works for him.

O'Donnell would say things like "Have some of these [ICE] raids gone too far?"

"You have to watch out for being idolized too much. It can very quickly go from that to, ‘I thought you were God and...'"

"'... you didn’t solve my problem, you betrayed everything you stand for,' which was actually not everything you stood for, it was something they decided you stood for."

Said Margaret Atwood, quoted in "For a Literary Saint, Margaret Atwood Can Sure Hold a Grudge/She had to be pushed to write her new memoir, 'Book of Lives.' The result reveals the experiences (and a few slights) that have shaped her work" (NYT).

"She grew skilled at caring for her mother’s costumes and props, at stamping her autograph on publicity photos, and at staying quiet on set."

"Dietrich’s costume designer made her a special uniform and gave her a title: 'attendant to Miss Marlene.' For years, she thought 'Maria Daughter of Marlene Dietrich' was her proper name; she was also never quite sure of her age, which changed as often as that of her mother, who regularly shaved off the years.... 'Dietrich was the queen.... My father was her major-domo, her lovers were her suitors, and I was the lady in waiting. I didn’t think it was strange; I had nothing to compare it to.' No school meant no companions her own age.... When she was about 12, she had her first encounter with actual children, an invitation to Judy Garland’s birthday party. She was terrified: What did real children do together? She and Judy huddled on the porch and bonded over their strange, caged existence...."

From "Maria Riva, Dietrich Daughter Who Demystified the Legend, Dies at 100 She was her mother’s handmaiden and aide-de-camp. In 1993, her blockbuster biography told of the awful price she paid" (NYT).

Sunrise — 6:12, 6:38, 6:38, 6:54.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"What must William, a man who ferociously hides his holidays, think when he reads how Andrew trotted the globe, splurging thousands of taxpayers’ pounds on helicopters, private jets, golf courses..."

"... rejecting cheaper alternatives, while telling everyone he was a great ambassador for us all? And then being so indiscreet and arrogant in front of senior diplomats that onlookers couldn’t believe he would 'speak so openly' about matters of great sensitivity? One consul, on being asked to provide 'blondes,' said: 'I’m a diplomat, not a pimp.'... [N]o one in the Palace would want to tell Her Majesty that in Bangkok her second son had been sent 40 prostitutes. But she must have known about the cash, because when things got really bad, she was the one who bailed them out.... She showered them with gifts, money, land, yet it was never enough. What was she thinking? Nothing, clearly — Andrew’s faults were simply beyond her imagination...."

From "Andrew and Sarah Ferguson? It’s a case for revolution/He hasn’t only disgraced himself — he is trashing Queen Elizabeth’s reputation too" (London Times).

"It’s a tough time to have a civic-minded election about municipal services. If anything takes us down, it’s going to be this 'to hell with them all' approach to government."

Said José Vela III, of the Austin City Council, which voted for a big property tax increase but must abide by Texas law that requires a referendum.

Quoted in "Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the Homeless. It’s Not Going Well. A proposed tax hike before the city on Tuesday has become a referendum on governance in the fast-changing Texas capital" (NYT).

"As a 'very, very effeminate boy' growing up in Baltimore, Ben Appel was teased mercilessly. At school, where he was regularly bullied, the other kids called him 'Bengay.'..."

"But when Appel later enrolled at Columbia University, eager to learn about the theories behind his activism, the rhetoric he encountered felt more like dogma than inquiry. 'According to queer theory, if you're a man who behaves in "unmasculine" ways or wears eyeliner you must be a woman inside, which I thought was regressive.... Saying that those superficial attributes are what make women women, and that any variation on the rough he-man stereotype means you're not a man, reinforces these rigid sex roles, and I thought we were supposed to be against those.' In his book 'Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic' [commission earned] which comes out next week, Appel argues that gender ideology is 'illiberal, regressive and anti-gay'...."

Writes Pamela Paul, in "The Growing Divide in the Rainbow Coalition/More gay people are speaking out against the gender ideology of trans and queer activists" (Wall Street Journal).

As the headline indicates, there's much more at the link than Appel's story. To quote just a bit:

The Property Brothers take on the White House.

"According to [Virginia] Giuffre, 'Rena,' an 'unusual-looking woman' of 'Asian descent' was to help Giuffre massage Epstein."

"'Jeffrey expected me to walk her through her duties,' Giuffre wrote.... Then Rena 'introduced me to my first taste of S&M,' Giuffre wrote. The book suggested that those interactions took place repeatedly over a period of months, with Rena becoming 'an official.' Rena 'considered herself a dominatrix … She liked bondage, whipping, hitting and eventually cutting her sex partner with little sharp knives,' Giuffre explained before detailing how Rena would end their sessions together by hitting her across the face with the back of her hand. At home in New Jersey, Oh stared at the screen with a sense of creeping dread. She recognised the settings Giuffre had described, she recognised some of the people too, but that was where the familiarity ended. 'The whole thing was made up,' she claims...."

From "I survived Epstein’s harem. Here’s what Virginia Giuffre got wrong/Rina Oh is suing her fellow victim’s estate, accusing her of fabricating stories about their experience in Jeffrey Epstein’s dark world" (London Times)(much more at the link).

Have you found what you're looking for?

Ambient U2 at sunrise as the fog clears on the frosty first morning of Standard Time:

ADDED: I don't know how casual or ritualistic these ablutions were, but let this photo stand for the proposition that the weather was frosty:

"One day last year, when she was hungry, a woman came up to her and offered what sounded like a dream proposition..."

"... would she like to work in a studio, performing on camera and earning good money, in safety, without anyone touching her? She went to the studio: a block of flats where an administrator registered her. She soon realised everything she had been told was a lie.... For the clients who watched her she was a fantasy: a young Colombian woman in her bedroom they paid handsomely to act out their desires. In reality she was a prisoner. For three months Victoria was held captive with five other women on the eighth floor of a block of flats, forced into violent sexual exploitation, on camera, for at least ten hours a day. Her earnings were stolen by the men who controlled her.... Every time she asked for the money she’d been promised, they told her she had debts that she had to work off first: food she’d eaten, paper towels they’d given her. If she cried and refused to perform, they fined her.... "

From "Inside the world sex-cam capital" (London Times)(describing conditions in Cúcuta, Colombia).

"Remember, Republicans, regardless of the Schumer Shutdown, the Democrats will terminate the Filibuster the first chance they get."

"They will Pack the Supreme Court, pick up two States, and add at least 8 Electoral Votes. Their two objectors are gone!!! Don’t be WEAK AND STUPID. FIGHT,FIGHT, FIGHT! WIN, WIN, WIN! We will immediately END the Extortionist Shutdown, get ALL of our agenda passed, and make life so good for Americans that these DERANGED DEMOCRAT politicians will never again have the chance to DESTROY AMERICA! Republicans, you will rue the day that you didn’t TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!! BE TOUGH, BE SMART, AND WIN!!! This is much bigger than the Shutdown, this is the survival of our Country!"

Writes Trump, at Truth Social.

1. What does "pick up two States" mean? I think it is a prediction that when Democrats next acquire a simple majority in both houses, they will vote for statehood for Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.

2. What does "Their two objectors are gone!!!" mean? The "two objectors" must be Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski —[but see #8] — but they are not "gone"... if "gone" means no longer in the Senate. But I think it means they count as nothing now, because we have the votes without them. Or it's a Trumpian way to say: Let them go. They're already gone. 

You'll just have to eat their lunch all by yourself....

3. I think Trump is saying all hell will break out anyway, so best to be the first to unleash the hell, and maybe, just maybe, the GOP hell will make life so good for Americans that these DERANGED DEMOCRAT politicians will never again win a majority. Meanwhile, half of America will think the deranged Republicans are destroying America. In the Trumpian vision of life — it's about winning — the question is just which half of America gets to turn America into what the other half regards as Destroyed America. 

4. Or maybe Trump's outburst is just part of the art of the deal — the part where he scares you so badly you accepts the sensible offer you were resisting. Here, the Democrats need only vote to end the shutdown.

5. Another meaning of "gone" — which I don't think is in play here — is the beatnik's "gone." Sample usage, from Jack Kerouac's "Dharma Bums": "Among the people standing in the audience was Rosie Buchanan, a girl with a short haircut, red-haired, bony, handsome, a real gone chick and friend of everybody of any consequence on the Beach...." Lisa Murkowski is bony and handsome. Forget Rosie Buchanan, Lisa Murkowski is a real gone chick:

6. Since I've said something about feminine beauty, let me provide balance with something about masculine beauty. I watched that Eagles clip, from 1974, and was amazed to see that they'd all styled themselves in the manner of Napoleon Dynamite.

7. But who was Rosie Buchanan? They say it was Natalie Jackson.

8. "Poor Rosie—she had been absolutely certain that the world was real and fear was real and now what was real? 'At least,' I thought, 'she's in Heaven now, and she knows.'"

9. As commenters to this post are pointing out, "Their two objectors" makes much more sense as a reference to Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, who really are gone from the Senate. They were theirs — the Democrats' — and they actually did object to the Democratic Senators' effort to vote away the filibuster to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in 2022.