Sunrise — 7:04, 7:20.

There was a 100% cloud cover this morning. And it was a full moon, the wolf moon, but we saw nothing of it.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

It was a theme day on the blog today. Did you notice?

Elon Musk loves the idea of Rubio as "president of Venezuela, governor of Cuba, and the Shah of Iran."

I support this 💯 https://t.co/MFckQ5VWqr

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2026

"The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine."

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine.”

He’s always on 😂 pic.twitter.com/78P3MnrLFv

— Josh Rainer (@JoshRainerGold) January 3, 2026

Mamdani's notion of "collectivism" as "warmth" finds its way into the WaPo editorial about Venezuela.

I'm reading "Trump’s bold capture of Maduro was a victory for America. What’s next?" by The Editorial Board of The Washington Post. That's the front page headline. Inside it's "Justice in Venezuela/The next challenge is setting the country up for long-term success."

The editorial ends: "For years, Maduro was a symbol of the false warmth of Latin American collectivism. Now he should spend the rest of his life in a humane American prison. His downfall is good news."

That can't be unrelated to Mamdani's recent assertion: "We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism."

Look for more "collectivism" as "warmth" rhetoric. I'm not making a new tag for that. Not yet. I'm sticking with the tags "socialism" and "hotness." How absurd is that?

Anyway, the WaPo editors seem rather positive about Trump's action in Venezuela. The mood at The New York Times is different: "Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Is Illegal and Unwise." It ends:

Trump's press conference this morning.

"[Maduro] was trying to get into [his safe room], but he got bum-rushed so fast that he didn’t get into that.... I watched it literally like I was watching a television show."

"And if you would have seen the speed, the violence, you know, they say that, the speed, the violence, they used that term, it was just an amazing thing, an amazing job that these people did — nobody else could have done anything like it."

Rubio reposts what he said last July.

Link.

Maduro ≈ Noriega.

🚨Nicolas Maduro should’ve studied history before waving a sword at President Trump.

January 3, 1990 we captured Panama’s narcotrafficking dictator Manuel Noriega.

January 3, 2026 we captured #Venezuela’s narcoterrorist dictator Nicolas Maduro. pic.twitter.com/rjUTTRs8xw

— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) January 3, 2026

"Let's celebrate without leaving our homes! Listen to the joy of a country that can already caress freedom. #venezuelalibre"

¡A celebrar sin salir de las casas! Escuchen la alegría de un país que ya puede acariciar la libertad. #venezuelalibre pic.twitter.com/SY6v3de70a

— Cristian Crespo F. 🇨🇺 (@cristiancrespoj) January 3, 2026

Grok's fact check: "The video in @cristiancrespoj's post shows people in Caracas apartment buildings celebrating with fireworks, cheers, and shouts of joy at dusk/night — exactly the kind of spontaneous, from-the-balconies reaction that exploded across social media and news reports right after the U.S. operation.... No credible reporting suggests the video is old, staged, or from unrelated events (e.g., past protests or unrelated fireworks). It aligns with the timeline and widespread reports of street/apartment-level jubilation following the news of the capture.This is a genuinely historic (and highly controversial) moment — the first direct U.S. military capture of a sitting Latin American head of state since the 1989 Panama invasion — so the celebratory footage is consistent with what was happening."

And, according to Grok, Cristian Crespo is "a Latin American human rights activist."

"The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. "

pic.twitter.com/sYG2neeuoc

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) January 3, 2026

Just got off the phone with @SecRubio

He informed me that Nicolás Maduro has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States, and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant… https://t.co/lXCxhPoKSZ

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) January 3, 2026

AND: From the live updates at the NYT:

Sunrise — 7:08, 7:26, 7:36.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"The 20 best things Trump did in 2025/The accomplishments of a stunning year can’t be captured in just 10 items."

Marc A. Thiessen itemizes the good, over at The Washington Post. That's a gift link, so you can see if you agree with the ranking and with the characterization of these things as good. You might want to read some of the comments, which can't believe what an awful idiot Thiessen is. 

"Then I just stopped listening to everybody, and everybody stopped talking to me. I was getting very little feedback."

"I began to perceive that my real interest was light. The reason for painting glass was to totally focus on light, and the glass held the light.... "

Said Janet Fish, quoted in "Janet Fish, Painter of Luminous Still Lifes, Dies at 87/From her student days, she stubbornly refused to follow popular artistic trends. Instead, she spent decades exploring the effects of light on glass" (NYT)(gift links, because there are some pretty cool photos of Fish's paintings).

"In the eyes of just about everyone at Yale, Ms. Fish later recalled, she was just 'this girl who’s painting flowers.' Upon arriving in New York in 1965, she continued to follow her own path. 'I just stuck to my work,' she said. 'And one thing led to another.'"

"Ow!"

🚨🇩🇪 Meanwhile in Cologne, Germany

German Streamer Kunshikitty sets out with the intention of showing that Women can walk safely through the streets that are occupied by new foreign Men

Ends up being attacked twice live on stream ‼️ pic.twitter.com/OU9uDmIXJD

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) January 1, 2026

ADDED: To be fair to the men in this video: Their identity was appropriated for use in an influencer's video. Maybe they didn't want to be used like that. Even if the woman — Kunshikitty — thought she was doing them a favor by eliciting video showing how good these men are, they might not want her framing and characterizations and use for clicks. I have no idea how good or bad they are, but I can understand resentment of the intrusion of influencers. 

"Now, let's kick off the second half of the Rose Bowl"/"I got chills right now"/"I just got a red, white, and boner"/"I think I got a little freedom erection."

The things they say on ESPN:

 

This was the greatest two minutes of televised college sports commentary ESPN has showed since June!

pic.twitter.com/VHGYgBEraf

— Noah Bieniek (Bee-Nick) (@NoahB77_) January 2, 2026

"America sending a message to the world" — if the world watched the Rose Bowl — "We got a B2 and you don't."

Meade's sunrise, just now.

"Collectivism" — he spoke the word, as if a wedding vow.

Mamdani said it, he highlighted it: "We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism." He promised it. He attributed warmth to it.

The link goes to my post yesterday with that quote as the title. In the comments, I wrote: "He's saying the words that have been left unsaid in the past. In that way, he's like Trump."

Who are the other American politicians who might have said "collectivism" — in a positive way, not as a way of criticizing somebody else? Bernie Sanders, who swore in Mamdani, doesn't use that word.

This blog has a 22-year archive, so I did a search to see how "collectivism" has figured into our discourse. I found 14 items, and I don't think any of them count as a positive use of the word in the style of Zoran Mamdami. 

Here are all the past occurrences of "collectivism" on this blog, in chronological order:

The first sunrise of the year — 7:17, 7:18, 7:21.

Happy New Year to everyone!

And welcome to the first open thread of the year.

"We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism."

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani: "We'll replace rugged individualism with collectivism" pic.twitter.com/dhUqGm2X26

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 1, 2026

He really said that. It's not AI. I checked. From the transcript of the inaugural speech:

Raise your culinary aspirations.

Do you have any idea of the heights of imagination and achievement that are available to you?

"So what are they going to get me for?"

Nick Shirley defends himself preemptively:

NICK SHIRLEY: "I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, I'm a virgin, I don't have sex with random girls, I don't have addictions, I don't have vices, so what are they going to get me for? I believe in God. I'm religious. I'm everything that they hate."pic.twitter.com/kZhPBXnoDs

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) January 1, 2026

Can the phrase "virtue signaling" be applied to this (jocosely?)? 

Pretty unusual for a man to tell the world he's a virgin.

I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, I'm a virgin, I don't have sex with random girls, I don't have addictions, I don't have vices, so what are they going to get me for? I believe in God. I'm religious. I'm everything that they hate.

Reset.

better than watching the ball drop pic.twitter.com/BOvloDhV07

— Mads (@MadsPosting) December 31, 2025

A New Year's mood.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ralph Ayala (@ralphjayala)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Charles Kreloff (@citizen_ck)

That's not my mood. It's what Instagram is serving up for me, either because it has an idea of my sense of humor or because it's some kind of evil monster.

"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American."

"Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."

Said this CBS News man, presumably the current anchor of the "Evening News," which posts this clip without telling us the man's name....

"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."

That changes now. The new CBS Evening News… pic.twitter.com/NKdvRJjYCS

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 1, 2026

I have no idea who this man is, I don't find his delivery confidence-inspiring, and I haven't watched the CBS Evening News since the days of its famously confidence-inspiring figurehead Walter Cronkite. 

I guess this clip, which appeared at the top of my "For you" feed at X, is supposed to make me believe that change is afoot at CBS. I'm not going to start watching the show to find out. I'll be seeing — and blogging — video clips as they appear on websites I read.

At the New Year's Eve party at Althouse...

... you can talk about your memories of 2025 and plans for 2026. 

Me, I'll almost surely be asleep, but I can see that it's already 2026 in London. In 5 minutes, it will turn midnight in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland. That's good enough for me!

***

And here's today's sunrise, which I did dare to go out to see:

They're already 5 hours into the new year in Thailand.

Happy New Year 2026 Thailand 🇹🇭 pic.twitter.com/tc4oJkEMYt

— Pretty Cities (@PrettyCitiesX) December 31, 2025

It is 2026. It's okay to go to bed now.

The Washington Post Editorial Board lists "25 Good Things That Happened in 2025" and not one thing is attributed to Trump.

The name Trump doesn't even appear — see for yourself here (gift link) — though "capitalism gets a favorable mention* and two of the items are educational policies associated with the conservatives.**

_____________

* "Bolivian voters elected centrist Rodrigo Paz as president, ending two decades of socialist misrule. The economist campaigned on the slogan 'capitalism for all.'"

** School choice and phonics (though phonics is associated not with conservatives but with "advocates of the science of reading").

The NYT puzzles over the Nick Shirley video.

I'm reading "An Intense White House Response From a Single Viral Video/A video purporting to expose extensive fraud at child care centers in Minnesota shows the relationship between the Trump administration and self-described citizen journalists" (NYT).

A 43-minute video posted online in the past week, purporting to expose extensive fraud at Somali-run child care centers in Minnesota, has been viewed by millions of people. It has also set off a series of events that show the symbiotic relationship between the Trump administration and self-described citizen journalists.

What was that "Incident That Prompted Trump to Ban EpsteinFrom Mar-a-Lago's Spa"?

"Mar-a-Lago sent an 18-year-old spa worker on a house call to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. She complained to her bosses that Epstein pressured her for sex," The Wall Street Journal reports.

A manager sent Trump a fax relaying the employee's allegations and urged him to ban Epstein, some of the former employees said. Trump said it was a good letter and said to kick him out. The beautician disclosed the house call to the club's human resources team, one of the former employees said. The incident wasn't reported to Palm Beach police, according to the former employees and police. The department didn't begin investigating Epstein until two years later, when a parent told them Epstein molested a 14-year-old girl from a local high school. Epstein was arrested in 2006 after several underage teens told police he paid them for sex....

"People find anything offensive, but we pushed back and we won. So f*** them. Until the next time. They haven’t gone away."

"They’re just licking their wounds. They’ll be back with something madder. But remember who it is next time? Right? It’s always these sort of educated, middle-class, privileged, elitist, sort of people telling ordinary working-class people what they can and can’t do and say and laugh, not realizing how important comedy is to ordinary people."

Said Ricky Gervais, in his new Netflix special, "Mortality," quoted in "Ricky Gervais Uses Netflix Special To Declare Victory Over 'Virtue Signalling' Elites Who 'Find Anything Offensive' — And Reveals Golden Globes Gag He Bottled" (Deadline).

Also: "The most annoying thing about virtue signalling is people being smug about having the morality of the age. You’re what you’re like because of where you are and when you are.... I’m willing to admit that if I’d have been born 300 years ago and I was white and wealthy, I’d have probably owned slaves...."

And then — I'm saying this based on having watched the show — he proceeds to fake-fawn over himself for being a particularly benevolent slaveholder. He virtue-signals within the slaveholder role. And the implication is that's what today's virtue-signalers are doing, praising themselves within the standards of the time but blind to the larger picture.

"It was almost like a magical object...."

"It brought New Yorkers together, that everyone had one in their wallet and we had that in common, and it's the way of the world — you can't stop it...."

I think it's great that she looks like this while writing for Vogue.

It's poor form to make fun of somebody for their looks but I do think it says something about the current state of affairs that one can look like this and write for Vogue. https://t.co/BXcxHe1rfg pic.twitter.com/H5zTIpceIz

— Jo (@junker_jo) December 31, 2025

I'm not here to say anything about the political wisdom of Brigitte Bardot. I just want to comment on the photograph of Emma Specter, author of the Vogue opinion piece, "Mourning Brigitte Bardot Doesn’t Mean Absolving Her."

Clicking on the author's name, I see that Specter has lots of writing credentials, including a book called "More Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing and the Lust for 'Enough'" (commission earned). That sounds like the sort of writing that would appeal to Vogue readers and serve their interests well.

So what is there here to make fun of, that she's fat but works for Vogue, where the models are usually quite thin? I'll bet the majority of the readers are fat and that a majority of the unfat readers worry about getting fat. I'll bet the models are obsessed with fighting fat. Fat is a big subject in the Vogue zone of interest, and who's better than Emma Specter at writing about it?

Or is "junker jo" making fun of the fashion? I think the fashion is perfect! Looks like something you'd feel happy and comfortable wearing while female and fat, and the method of putting things together reminds me of those "Look of the Week" fashions we were talking about yesterday. It's really important to show women ways to dress that don't seem to say: First, get thin and maybe you'll be able to wear this.

ADDED: The embedded post originally looked like this:

"Part of the sausage making process."

What happens when the minimum wage goes up? Well, California is getting an experiment in that right now. Just ask @gavinnewsom. Reason's @BessByers shares what happened after AB 1228 implemented a government-mandated pay raise for all fast-food workers. 🍔 pic.twitter.com/FFL7hkMOKk

— reason (@reason) December 31, 2025

Excellent video, but let me focus on Gavin Newsom's use of the old analogy between lawmaking and sausage making. The idea is you like the results but you'd be disgusted to see the process. So I guess Newsom's best argument for the bizarre exceptions in California's minimum wage law is that we'd be grossed out by the details if we saw them, but the final product is something we love. But with sausage, the final product has all the strange ingredients blended into one coherent-looking whole. The law Newsom is defending has unexplained exceptions right there in the text. It's more like sausage that has visible chunks of weird things that don't seem to belong and you want to know what the hell is that... and that... and that? You don't eat that sausage. And that's another thing. With sausage, if something about it makes you suspicious, you don't eat it. You're not forced to eat it just because the sausage-factory made it. Don't buy it. If it's served to you, don't eat it. Laws, we're forced to eat. 

***

The oldest version of the law/sausage analogy seems to be: "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." I'm told that was written by the poet/lawyer John Godfrey Saxe, in 1869, in an article in the Daily Cleveland Herald. You probably heard that Otto von Bismarck is part of the story, but stories are like sausages: Everyone's always imagining what's in there, how it got in, and whether it belongs there. 

Sunrise — 7:12.

Meade braved the cold and got that photograph. I hid inside again. The "feels like" temperature was 1°.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

"Some of the looks impressed me from afar, drawing my gaze with big coats, fun trousers or tailored jackets."

"In other cases, it was only up close that I noticed how special looks were, thanks to details like coins in the straps of loafers, the faded pony hair of a vintage handbag or the handmade quality of crocheted gloves. The looks, which you can read more about by clicking the images below, together form a tapestry of style and are a reminder that every outfit can tell a story. Sometimes, you just have to ask."

Writes Simbarashe Cha, in "Clothes With Stories to Tell/See all the outfits from around the world that were featured this year in our Look of the Week column" (NYT)(and I'd like to make that a gift link so you could see all the many photographs, but I've used up all my gift links for the year)(ADDED: gift link).

Can I derive a few hints on how to dress yourself? Yes: 1. If you think you are dressed, think again and add 2 more things, 2. Big pants, clunky shoes, 3. A hat and a hood, 4. We're not doing quiet rich, we're doing loud working class, replete with ludicrously capacious bag, 5. Leopard prints.

"The enormous public interest generated by garish reconstructions is surely because of and not in spite of their ugliness."

"It is hard to believe that this is entirely accidental. One possibility is that the reconstructors are engaged in a kind of trolling. In this interpretation, they know perfectly well that ancient sculptures did not look like the reconstructions, and probably included the subtle variation of color tones that ancient paintings did. But they fail to correct the belief that people naturally form given what is placed before them: that the proffered reconstruction of ancient sculpture is roughly what ancient sculpture actually looked like. It is a further question whether such trolling would be deeply objectionable.... There is genuine intellectual value in the project and what could be seen as mean-spirited iconoclasm could equally be embraced as harmless fun. On the other hand, at a time when trust in the honest intentions of experts is at a low, it may be unwise for experts to troll the public."

Writes Ralph S. Weir, in "Were classical statues painted horribly? It is often suggested that modern viewers dislike painted reconstructions of Greek and Roman statues because our taste differs from that of the ancients. This essay proposes an alternative explanation" (Works in Progress).

Is that a joke about how the ancient Greeks painted their statues? 

"A few (male) editors have told me they wish they could figure out what men would read, what books they would buy."

"I think they do read. They read nonfiction and genre fiction, mostly. And then they probably read the canon. They’re just not reading, like, contemporary literary fiction, and I don’t know if that’s bad or good. I also think it’s a question of generations — they’re wondering what younger millennial men are reading and Gen-Z boys/men. They’re young, and their tastes are as yet unformed, so … get to work!"

Said an unnamed literary agent, quoted in "28 Book Industry Professionals Get Candid About the State of the Industry" (New York Magazine).

"Cecilia Giménez, famed for ‘Monkey Christ’ mural mishap, dies at 94."

The Guardian reports.

Amid the storm of mockery and bad publicity over what became known as the Monkey Christ, Giménez took to her bed with an attack of anxiety, losing 17kg (37lb) in the process. However, she soon found that notoriety had an upside as people began bidding to buy her own art, which she sold on eBay, and she later donated the proceeds to a Catholic charity. The botched restoration became first an internet sensation and then a tourist attraction and the church began charging for admission. Ryanair laid on special flights to Zaragoza, the nearest airport, and today thousands of people continue to visit the village to see her work....

They made an opera about it:

"G IS FOR PREGNANCY/A degrading punishment imposed on women’s bodies after they have given themselves to the love of a man…"

"... it transforms the lover into a disfigured progenitor who no longer inspires mad desire. It is the beginning of the deterioration of a couple’s relationship."

Wrote Brigitte Bardot, quoted in "Everything (and Everyone) Brigitte Bardot Scorned" (NYT).

She had one child. See "All About Brigitte Bardot's Estranged Son Nicolas-Jacques Charrier" (People):

"I'm not made to be a mother," Bardot wrote in her memoir.... "I'm not adult enough — I know it's horrible to have to admit that, but I'm not adult enough to take care of a child."... 

"I looked at my flat, slender belly in the mirror like a dear friend upon whom I was about to close a coffin lid,” she wrote....

Bardot also wrote that she had two abortions before the pregnancy she carried to term, one of which was almost fatal.... she also revealed that she attempted suicide.... "I wanted to free myself — in every sense of the word...."

In the world of Chappell Roan, Brigitte Bardot might as well be Milkshake Duck.

I'm reading "Chappell Roan walks back tribute to Brigitte Bardot over late star’s 'insane' beliefs" (NY Post).

It looked like this on Instagram:

Quick turnaround. 4 minutes. Made me think of Milkshake Duck:

But "Red Wine Supernova" came out in 2023. It begins "She was a playboy/Brigitte Bardot/She showed me things...." The reference to Bardot is not obscure, but in your face, line 1. Chappell Roan has been trading on that famous name for 2 years.

Bardot has openly expressed the ideas that got her accused of racism since 2 years before Chappell Roan was born. (Bardot published "Mon cri de colère" ("My Cry of Anger") in 1996.)

How is it that no one told Chappell Roan that Brigitte Bardot was something more than a sex object until Roan made herself part of the story of Bardot's death?!

"The artists who have protested in recent weeks include Kristy Lee, a folk singer from Alabama, who announced she was pulling out from a free concert...."

"'I won’t lie to you, canceling shows hurts,' she said in a social media post. 'This is how I keep the lights on. But losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck.'"

From "New Year’s Eve Concerts at Kennedy Center Are Canceled/The jazz drummer Billy Hart said the decision was 'evidently' connected to President Trump’s name being added to the arts center" (NYT).

Art is not logic.

At the Monday Night Café…

 … you can talk about whatever you want.

Pinching lobsters. Hmm. They're the ones with the pincers.

Just reading the headlines in the British paper:

Here's the story: "The FBI is investigating after a truck carrying lobsters worth $400,000 was hijacked by a thief posing as a legitimate driver." How does a stolen truck make the front page? I guess it seems amusing that the truck was loaded with lobsters. That "s" on "lobsters" indicates they were living lobsters, but it says they were on their way to Costco, so I'm picturing what I would call "lobster" — no "s" — boxes of frozen lobster. I'd hate to have keep $400,000 worth of lobsters alive. Too complicated!

In other news... too bad for Harry and Meghan. They keep losing publicists. This latest loss "comes after Meghan and Harry attended a birthday party hosted by Kris Jenner, 70, the night before the UK marked Remembrance Sunday." Quite the gaffe.

"He is not the Word made flesh but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair."

It's obviously laughable to pay Ezra Klein $40-70k to hear his vapid, DNC-donor-pleasing, liberal clichés.

That said, I would pay him some substantial portion of that fee to come to a wedding or birthday party to perform a dramatic reading of this hilarious passage he wrote: https://t.co/q0fX4EL2S8 pic.twitter.com/isZtqbNkRs

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 28, 2025

I don't know what irritates me more — the capitalization of one "word" but not the other, or the italics for "over." So he's not the Messiah but his excellent speech conquers... well, everything... or something. 

ADDED: I think Klein deserves this fee. He's a well-known figure who embodies the idea of moderation and civility and he will have to set aside his regular work to travel to and from your event. That's going to cost you at least $40,000. There must be all these Democrats fretting about how to not look so awful and the calming stately presence of Ezra Klein might help them believe there will be an answer.

"I never liked the MAGA Mar-a-Lago sexualization. I believe how women in leadership present themselves sends a message to younger women."

"I have two daughters, and I’ve always been uncomfortable with how those women puff up their lips and enlarge their breasts. I’ve never spoken about it publicly, but I’ve been planning to."

Said Marjorie Taylor Greene, quoted in "'I Was Just So Naïve’: Inside Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Break With Trump/How the Georgia congresswoman went from the president’s loudest cheerleader to his loudest Republican critic" (NYT).

This is a very long article, by Robert Draper. Let me just pull out 3 more things:

"Unlike anything ever done or seen before!"

Link.

"Though Musk is unpredictable, he is also a formidable ally. With his nearly unlimited resources and unmatched digital megaphone..."

"... Musk could prove a powerful asset to the MAGA movement once Trump leaves the stage. Vance in particular stands to benefit. Though the falling out between Trump and Musk dominated the headlines, Vance’s role in the reunion highlights his own relationship with the billionaire. He talks regularly with Musk, who sees Vance as a viable 2028 candidate.... Musk and Vance, a former Silicon Valley investor, share not just a tech-infused worldview but a fondness for online performance — especially on Musk’s social media platform, X, where Vance has embraced a sharp, 'own-the-libs' style that can mirror Musk’s own taste for provocation. Their alliance could further entrench the influence of tech titans in the White House, extending the authority of private entrepreneurs."

From "How Vance brokered a truce between Trump and Musk/JD Vance played a key role brokering a reconciliation between the president and his wealthiest supporter. But as Trump’s first year in office comes to a close, both he and his allies have learned hard lessons about Musk’s unusual influence" (WaPo)(gift link).

That seems pretty important, and WaPo — fighting darkness for the sake of democracy — put it at the top of the front page, right alongside a dubious headline about the spread of "The epidemic of toxic flattery:

I can do without the disease metaphor — "epidemic," "spreading" — because I don't think the problem of flattery — whatever it is — is going to need anything analogous to masks, vaccinations, and staying at home. And what is "toxic" about flattery?

"The most new York couple is: very sweet man that everyone loves with a wife way out of his league that he’s obsessed with."

That's the top rated comment on this TikTok about Rama Duwaji, the wife of Zohran Mamdani:

"I think the museum staying in North Bay will help them from making foolish choices, like what they did to us, you know. It should never be repeated again."

Said Annette Dionne — born in North Bay, Ontario — quoted in "Annette Dionne, Last of the Celebrated Quintuplets, Dies at 91/She was the first to crawl, the first to cut a tooth, the first to recognize her name, and the last to die. And, like her sisters, she resented being exploited as part of a global sensation" (NYT).

Imagine being one of 5 babies and then also to be famous, all your life, for just that. It's a puzzle of distinction and indistinction.

From the Wikipedia article for North Bay: "The Dionne Quintuplets... had a tremendous impact on tourism in the area. For a province struggling against economic strangulation they were as valuable a resource as gold, nickel, pulpwood or hydro power. They saved an entire region from bankruptcy. They launched Northern Ontario's flourishing tourist industry. At their peak they represented a $500 million asset. North Bay and the surrounding area lived off this legacy well into the 1960s. Many visitors to the area discovered lakes and summer retreats that were easily accessible, and the businesses thrived on the tourist dollars."

Shopping completely alone.

It is possible —  apparently — but you will need to be in China and, presumably, sacrifice your privacy for safety and convenience? And wouldn't most Americans sacrifice privacy for safety and convenience? I'll say, no, we won't, because we wouldn't believe that we'd get the promised safety and convenience. We'd just be giving up our privacy for not much of anything.

At the Sunday Night Café…

 … you can talk all night.

"Joey Ramone once said that the Ramones 'started off just wanting to be a bubblegum group.'"

"The band covered 'Little Bit O’ Soul' on its 1983 album 'Subterranean Jungle.' The ever-arty Talking Heads gave their own disjointed spin to '1,2,3, Red Light' while performing in their early years at CBGB, the Bowery club that was a cradle of punk rock. No less a rock purist than Lester Bangs, the storied gonzo critic, eventually gave bubblegum its due in the 1992 book 'The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll.' 'The basic bubblegum sound could be described as the basic sound of rock ’n’ roll,' he wrote, 'minus the rage, fear, violence and anomie that runs from Johnny Burnette to Sid Vicious.'"

So ends the obituary "Jerry Kasenetz, a King of Bubblegum Pop Music, Dies at 82/With his producing partner, Jeffry Katz, he made lightweight ditties like 'Yummy Yummy Yummy' that soared up the charts in the late 1960s" (NYT).

The links in the text go to the Ramones and Talking Heads covers, but here's a Spotify playlist I made of the original version of those 2 songs along with all the other Kasenetz and Katz songs named in the obituary. It's all great stuff — 9 songs, 22 minutes:

"The first major turning point in Goldstein’s poker career came in 2008, when he put up the $10,000 fee to enter the World Series of Poker..."

"... a multiday extravaganza in Las Vegas. On the first night, after the tournament had ended for the day, Goldstein sat down at a table at the Bellagio. 'I end up playing without looking at my cards,' Goldstein said. That, to put it mildly, was an unconventional strategy. He bet wildly and recklessly, but his opponents were flummoxed by his blind aggression. Goldstein told me he ultimately played that way for 18 hours and won some $400,000...."

Writes Jeffrey Toobin in "He Was a Supreme Court Lawyer. Then His Double Life Caught Up With Him. Thomas Goldstein was a superstar in the legal world. He was also a secret high-stakes gambler, whose wild 10-year run may now land him in prison" (NYT).

"I’ve been saying for a while that the gender-neutral 'they/them' was going to become even more widespread. As a linguist..."

"... who studies the ways language changes, I noted the rise in people resisting the gender binary and got caught up in — and perhaps even biased toward — what I processed as a pronominal revolution. But surveys show that the number of young people identifying as nonbinary has decreased considerably over the past two years. Binary genders are on the rise again, and therefore so are the pronouns most closely associated with them...."

Writes John McWhorter, designating "He and she" as item #7 of the "Words and Phrases" list in his section of "The Year in Lists."

And that happens to be my last gift link of the year from The New York Times, so enjoy reading all the items on all the lists.

Jennifer Weiner has "9 Retrograde Moments for Women." I guess there were only 9, because if you'd had a 10th, wouldn't you go for the cliché of a 10 item list? And yet Weiner made a single item out of Erika Kirk and Usha Vance. Was it "retrograde" to put them together? Yes, but it wasn't Weiner's doing. Some people on the internet did it: they talked about JD Vance divorcing Usha and marrying Erika Kirk. Was that important enough to repeat? Weiner only purports to give us "moments"....

"Are we still producing anthemic songs that everyone can know and sing anymore? Songs like 'We Will Rock You,' 'Living on a Prayer' and 'Sweet Caroline'?"

"... The difference is, back in those songs’ eras, people across demographics still seemed to know and enjoy them. Whether from performances on Johnny Carson’s 'Tonight Show,' spins on Casey Kasem’s 'American Top 40' or others, that was a time of cultural commonalities regardless of personal taste or ideology.... When I perform older songs such as 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' everyone sings the chorus.... Yet for their modern-day equivalents, that’s far less likely. By not singing communally, we lose the emotional experience to feel bonded with those from other groups or ideologies. This lack of kinship plays out across multiple domains throughout our society with more serious impact. Studies and surveys find Americans in the 2010s and 2020s are increasingly unlikely to have cross-ideology friendships, to live near neighbors who disagree politically, or to date across party lines."

Writes piano-bar musician Jesse Rifkin, in "I perform at a piano bar. The most requested song might surprise you. So long 'Piano Man.' Chappell Roan’s ode to a gay bar now draws the most requests" (WaPo).

One thing Rifkin seems blind to is TikTok. At least for "Take Me Home Country Roads," one reason the old song is known today is through extreme repetition on TikTok.

For an extra-charming example, look at this:

"The Islamic State’s history shows that when the group establishes a stable presence, it’s only a matter of time before it looks to wreak havoc around the world."

"It’s tempting to want to pretend that the chaos in West Africa isn’t an American problem, but the world isn’t that simple...."

Writes the Washington Post Editorial Board, in "Why West Africa is worth worrying about/Strikes on ISIS targets in Nigeria are welcome but insufficient" (gift link).

Goodbye to Brigitte Bardot.

"Brigitte Bardot, the pouty, tousle-haired French actress who redefined mid-20th-century movie sex symbolism in films beginning with 'And God Created Woman,' then gave up acting at 39 to devote her life to the welfare of animals, has died. She was 91."

The NYT reports.

President Macron writes: "Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century."

Much as I've admired Brigitte Bardot for her great beauty, I have never seen a Brigitte Bardot movie, not even "Contempt."

"We must rebel when we're trapped by circumstances, conventions."

Here's her filmography, full of titles I'm sad not to recognize.

"At best, Ms. Bardot was considered eccentric in her later years, prompting observations that this former sex kitten, as she was often called, had turned into a “crazy cat lady,'" it says in the NYT obituary. 

At best? That's because of this:

"Althouse takes boxing day pretty seriously."

Said Old and slow in last night's open thread, "Sunrise — 7:13." It was only the second post of the day. The first, "Tea with Larry," at 9:29 a.m., was also an open thread. It consisted of 2 photographs and the single sentence, "It's a no-news Saturday, the day after the day after Christmas."

It was the day after the day after Christmas. But it was not Boxing Day. Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, and there were 5 posts on Boxing Day. So what was this day after the day after Christmas? Do we call it nothing but the day after the day after Christmas (or, if we say Boxing Day, the day after Boxing Day)?

It is the Feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist. Those who have grown weary of the Christmas holiday might turn to the Feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist for fresh inspiration.

But now it is December 28th. Is it a back to normal day? Will scanning the headlines in the usual way yield blog posts with the natural flow that is my long custom? If not, is it a day with a name — like Christmas, Boxing Day, and the Feast of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist — a day we might observe with special activities?

It is a special day, but it's a day I wouldn't want to focus on: It is the Feast of the Holy Innocents:

The Feast of the Holy Innocents was one of a series of days known as the Feast of Fools, and the last day of authority for boy bishops. Parents temporarily abdicated authority. In convents and monasteries the youngest nuns and monks were allowed to act as abbess and abbot for the day. These customs, which were thought to mock religion, were condemned by the Council of Basel (1431). In medieval England children were reminded of the mournfulness of the day by being whipped in bed in the morning; this custom survived into the 17th century....

"Perhaps because they have so many kids, they said they aren’t the types to hover over their children and check their homework."

"And as it is physically impossible to shuttle their children to extracurriculars all over town, they are often free to do what they want within a two-mile radius. In short, because they are not capable of meeting the expectations of parenthood in the modern age, they do not try to. 'We have these childless friends come over and they’re like, "You always seem so calm,"' Mrs Korczynski said. 'They say, "You ignore most things, but if something’s going on then you can hop on that."'  There are, of course, downsides. Every morning the children struggle to get into the one bathroom they share with each one banging on the door, yelling for the shower (the parents have their own). Dinners are like battles royale — 'they know if they’re late there might not be any food left,' said Mr Korczynski."

From "Why we decided to have seven children Americans are having fewer kids, worried about the high cost and uncertainty of the world. But for John and Sasha Korczynski, raising a large brood has been a leap of faith." That's in the London Times, but the family lives in the U.S. — in Florida.

How will they pay for college? "I think this is where having a big family comes in handy for college, because they do give you better financial aid packages."