Sunrise — 7:00, 7:11, 7:14.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"So anyway, there are a number of you folks in what I would call the manosphere who are reaching some conclusions that I wonder if they're not going to be, um, more harmful than they are insightful...."

Says Bret Weinstein to Ben Davidson, in a podcast titled "Son Set in the Manosphere."

Weinstein has a lot of things he wants to say, and he takes the time spell them out calmly. Davidson is way more emotional — embarrassingly angry at women — to the point where I felt that he shouldn't be on the show at all, but he did give Weinstein a lot to bounce off from. 

"Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was warned about massive fraud in a pandemic food-aid program for children, yet he failed to act."

"Instead, whistleblowers who raised concerns faced retaliation. Because of Governor Walz’s negligence, criminals — including Somali terrorists — stole nearly $1 billion from the program while children suffered.”

Said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), quoted in "
Treasury, House panel launch probes into Tim Walz’s handling of $1B food aid fraud — and they could make criminal referrals" (NY Post).

"The more I advance in my life, the more I fear humans. I’m more animal than human."

Said Brigitte Bardot, quoted in "Brigitte Bardot: I tried to kill myself many times. A miracle saved me/The 91-year-old screen icon discusses her struggles with depression as a young woman in a new 90-minute documentary titled Bardot" (London Times).

Today at the crunchy steps, coots.

Some ducks finding their way into the fringe of coot society, but basically coots.

Crunching on the steps, that's Meade, not me.

Here I am — another coot video'd by Meade:

Michelle Goldberg calls Olivia Nuzzi's book "a grandiose postmodern pastiche that attempts to situate her personal catastrophe in the context of our collective one."

"Interspersed with Nuzzi’s stream-of-consciousness musings are facts about drone strikes, gun deaths and wild fires; long chunks of Q&A dialogue, including with Donald Trump; a court document detailing the assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband; an F.B.I. report on the man who wrote the children’s book 'Harold and the Purple Crayon'; and quotes from figures including Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Jung and Jane Birkin. It’s a pretentious mess, but an audacious one. It seems less an attempt to justify herself to the Beltway world she once inhabited than to catapult over it, into the more congenial realms of art and literary celebrity."

Here's the whole column: "A Serious Journalism Scandal Hiding Inside a Frivolous Sexual One."

I read the excerpt from Nuzzi's book when Vanity Fair published it a couple weeks ago, and I too made fun of the florid, pretentious writing. But "grandiose postmodern pastiche" — in the New York Times — makes me feel a twinge of empathy. What if Nuzzi is genuinely literary? What she did is perhaps what I would have done in the same circumstances — tossed out of my ongoing career with nothing but raw material, raw emotion, a publisher's advance enough to cover living expenses, and whatever true writing gift I could find inside myself. They thought I was a journalist, that I would write a fast-moving, funny, fact-filled account of my interaction with RFK Jr., but they don't know, they don't know what I am....

Here's the book, "American Canto" (commission earned).

Crunchy snow steps at sunrise.

Those are Meade's crunchy snow steps. I was struggling with my iPhone which was acting like a camera with the lens cap on. I thought I could just point and shoot as if I could see what I was doing, but I couldn't.

Here's another Meade video, the western view at 7:26 a.m.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I had spent 12 hours with this man. What could I have done differently? What words could I have used?"

"My patient’s opinions were mystifying, as if the product of an unsound mind. Should we have disregarded them and performed a procedure against his wishes?... My patient had been clear. He was consistent. He had the right to make his own decisions. What I considered to be an unfounded and ultimately disastrous objection to a pacemaker was not, in and of itself, proof of incapacity.... I did not know what it was like to live with his autoimmune disease.... Because I was unwilling to accept my patient’s desires at the end of his life, his final 12 hours on this earth were fraught and contentious. I could not have changed his mind, but perhaps I could have changed that."

Writes Daniela J. Lamas, in "My Patient Was Making a Fatal Decision. What Could I Do?" (NYT).

Melania Trump presents the White House Christmas.

Home Is Where the Heart Is
AMERICA’S CHRISTMAS

This Christmas, let’s celebrate the love we hold within ourselves and share it with the world around us. After all, wherever we are, we can create a home filled with endless possibilities. pic.twitter.com/VouZAtLpHU

— First Lady Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 1, 2025

I laughed when I saw the picture of Trump on the windowsill, like Trump — mugshot Trump! — is a Christmas character — along with Santa and Jesus. But on rewatch, I see the emphasis on the United States as a political entity, in its 250th year. And there's George Washington on the other windowsill as if the windows are a time line from the origin point in the past to the present day. We see Jesus, but not Santa. There's nothing aimed at children here. It's elegant, not fun or cute.

Melanie reaches out to one of the frosted white ornaments. There must be one for every state, because it says "Georgia." We see the slogans "Fostering the Future" and "Be Best." [ADDED: I said there is "nothing aimed at children" in the decorations, but both of those these slogans indicate programs aimed at children.]

The animal that represents Christmas in this display is a blue butterfly. Is that a real species of butterfly or just a monarch butterfly rendered in blue?

"The 36-year-old New York-based private chef Jen Monroe... uses cotton candy... wind[ing] the filaments around edible wildflowers, adding savory notes like smoke, tea or parsley...."

"Much of cotton candy’s appeal is its inherent evanescence. When the Italian arts patron Nicoletta Fiorucci asked the London-based chef Imogen Kwok, 34, to create a dish that recalled water for a show at her namesake Chelsea foundation, Kwok piled what she calls 'wispy cumulus clouds' into a cascading form, from which guests could pull clumps with their hands...."

From "How Cotton Candy Won Over the Adults/Long associated with childhood and county fairs, the food has found its place among a new generation of experimental chefs" (NYT).

"To comply with a spoken order from Hegseth to kill everyone, the Special Operations commander overseeing the mission ordered a second strike..."

"... that killed the two survivors, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. Those people, along with five others in the original report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. Trump said he would look into the issue. 'I wouldn’t have wanted that. Not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine,' the president told reporters."

From "Trump says Hegseth denied issuing order to kill boat crew/The president also said he would not have wanted a second strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs, which occurred after U.S. forces realized the initial attack left two survivors, as The Post reported" (WaPo)(gift link, so you can read the whole thing).

UPDATE: "Hegseth Ordered a Lethal Attack but Not the Killing of Survivors, Officials Say" (NYT): "According to five U.S. officials, who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter that is under investigation, Mr. Hegseth, ahead of the Sept. 2 attack, ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs. But, each official said, Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things. And, the officials said, his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast. Admiral Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow-up strikes that killed the initial survivors and sank the disabled boat. As that operation unfolded, they said, Mr. Hegseth did not give any further orders to him."

These men in shorts are exempt from any Althouse rule against men in shorts.

Photo taken on the ride back from the sunrise walk. It was 7:53 a.m. and the temperature was, perhaps, 20°.

"For the first time in modern memory, the [Solicitor General's] office’s merits briefs... begin with an 'introduction,' a section often filled with unusually charged language..."

"... including direct quotes from Mr. Trump.... The Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus, an assistant solicitor general during the Reagan administration, said the charged rhetoric in filings could imperil the office’s special status with the Supreme Court as a trusted counselor that presents the justices with rigorous arguments that interpret the law consistently, no matter who occupies the White House. The fiery language, Professor Lazarus said, makes the office sound like 'a zealous ideologue.' 'They look like they are representing an individual. They don’t look like they are representing the United States or the federal government,' he said. 'The question is whether the court will call them on it or not.'"

From "Despite Supreme Court Wins, Elite D.O.J. Unit Has Seen Mass Turnover/Even with an exodus of lawyers, the Office of the Solicitor General has had remarkable success. But fiery rhetoric and close White House ties have raised concerns" (NYT).

I'm fascinated by the way the first 2 sentences of that headline state cause and effect in 2 different directions.

"Despite... Wins... Mass Turnover" suggests that usually people don't leave a successful team.

"Even with an exodus of lawyers... remarkable success" suggests that teams usually aren't successful when lots of people leave.

It's not incoherent though. The point is that the Solicitor General's office has adopted a forceful position that is both successful and repellent.   

"I hope that the sisters will accept the path I have outlined and that a regulated religious life will once again be a reality in Goldenstein."

Wrote Abbot Markus Grasl, quoted in "3 Rebel Nuns Can Stay in Abbey, if They Give Up Social Media/After the octogenarian nuns refused to return to their senior center, the abbot has finally folded. But he has some conditions" (NYT).

When three octogenarian nuns escaped their senior center in September, their unlikely quest for freedom set off a bitter standoff with the abbot who leads their Roman Catholic order. The three rebel nuns forced their way back into the Austrian abbey where they had lived for decades, before the senior center. ...

The abbot had cited "a church rule that orders must have at least six living members." What happened to that rule? There were 3 nuns living in an abbey within a medieval castle.

Now that they've gotten so much attention and support, the abbot says they can stay, but they "must stop letting laypeople into their cloisters, and — most likely much more important — they must end their social media feed." And yet that's how they won their heart's desire, though public attention and support, acquired through social media. Without social media, perhaps they'll lose what they've gained. But what prevents them from restarting their social media, if promises are broken? A vow of obedience? That didn't stop their first rebellion. 

Here's that social media feed (at Instagram). 

Sunrise — after the big snow — at 6:37, 6:38, 6:40, 7:00.

Not wanting to drive the car to our vantage point, we set out on foot. It was quite the trudge — a mile out and a mile back — mostly through 9 inches of snow on uncleared pathways. 

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"rage bait" — "online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive."

It's the Oxford University Press "Word of the Year" (the NYT reports).

The runners up were "biohack" and "aura farming."

I've never used (or quoted) the phrase "rage bait" or "aura farming."

I did quote "biohack" once. The context was the use of an IV to fend off a hangover. I commented: "Drinking is funny until it's not. Does this IV bag extend the funny phase or expedite the tragic? The need to say things like 'self-care,' 'virtuous aftercare,' and 'biohack' sounds desperate, but that can be part of the funny, especially for the drunkards."

"On July 10, Mattheis Johnson hopped a bus on a warm summer night to see a pop-up punk rock show at Seattle’s Gas Works Park, a hulking collection of steel towers, tanks and pipes..."

"... that has become one of the world’s most widely emulated examples of postindustrial landscape design. His parents felt nervous every time their 15-year-old son asserted his independence, but they also knew he needed adventures.... [A]s the concert wound down, Mattheis tried climbing the park towers....  He lost his footing, fell 50 feet and died at a nearby hospital...."

From "After Teen’s Death, a Seattle Icon Confronts a New Label, Nuisance/For years, architects and design experts have resisted safety changes at Seattle’s Gas Works Park, but after a teenager died there this summer, his parents want it declared a public nuisance" (NYT).

"Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes..."

"... by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.... Outrage has swelled among Minnesotans.... Gov. Tim Walz and fellow Democrats are being asked to explain how so much money was stolen on their watch.... Many Somali Americans in Minnesota say the fraud has damaged the reputation of their entire community, around 80,000 people, at a moment when their political and economic standing was on the rise.... Critics of the Walz administration say that the fraud persisted partly because state officials were fearful of alienating the Somali community in Minnesota.... The episode has raised broader questions for some residents about the sustainability of Minnesota’s Scandinavian-modeled system of robust safety net programs bankrolled by high taxes...."

I'm reading "How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch/Prosecutors say members of the Somali diaspora, a group with growing political power, were largely responsible. President Trump has drawn national attention to the scandal amid his crackdown on immigration" (NYT).

"[Theo] Von introduced C.K. to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, where he began working to address his addiction..."

"... to masturbation. He practiced abstinence—it was, he said, a 'crazy idea to me. . . . Don’t have sexual release for several months in a row'—but, eventually, he 'got out of the cycle.' His emotions started coming back. 'I saw everything really differently,' he said. 'I saw that everything that had happened with me was because of me. And, by the way, that’s great news, because that means you could do something about it.'... [And] this is what enabled him to write his book. He recently finished a second one. 'I’m writing novels because I don’t jerk off every fifteen minutes,' he said. 'It’s really all it is.'"

Writes Tyler Foggatt in "Louis C.K.’s Next Chapter/In a new standup special, and a début novel, the comedian navigates murky, post-#MeToo terrain: not quite exiled, not quite welcomed back" (The New Yorker).

That reminded me of the old after-sex punchline. Attributed to Balzac: « Là… encore un roman de perdu ! » (“There… another novel lost!”). There's a line in "Annie Hall": “I read a thing about Balzac. He used to, uh, after he’d have sex he’d go, ‘Oh, there goes another novel.’”

I opine on the snow — before and after.

At 7:22 a.m. yesterday, as the snow is beginning to fall:

And at 11:22 a.m. on today:

Had to dust off the old "I was wrong" tag.

"... Maduro is embracing English, singing John Lennon’s 'Imagine,' advocating for peace and dancing to a remix of his latest English catchphrase, 'No War, Yes Peace.'"

I'm reading "Venezuelan leader Maduro may seem desperate. But his loyalty vs punishment strategy is hard to crack/Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was once critical of English" (ABC News).

"The emails described a man who was struggling to assimilate... while he alternated between 'periods of dark isolation and reckless travel.'"

"Sometimes, he spent weeks in his 'darkened room, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife or older kids.'... But then, there were 'interim' weeks where Lakanwal would try to make amends and 'do the right things'.... 'But that has quickly evolved into "manic: episodes for one or two weeks at a time, where he will take off in the family car, and drive nonstop,' the email outlined. Once, he went to Chicago, and another time, to Arizona...."

From "Suspect in National Guard attack struggled with ‘dark isolation’ as community raised concerns/Emails obtained by The Associated Press reveal mounting warnings about the suspect" (Politico).